motor

Jaguar has decided to turn its hugely impressive jet-powered Jaguar C-X75 hybrid concept into a £700,000, Bugatti Veyron-beating flagship for production in 2013 – and is enlisting the aid of the Williams F1 team to do it. The deal, a momentous decision that will affect everything Jaguar does for decades to come, was announced in London this morning by Tata chief Carl-Peter Forster, with Sir Frank Williams in attendance. It will involve a direct technology transfer between the partners, especially over lightweight structures, and brings Tata ever closer to the F1 connection that has often been rumored.


Jaguar is planning 250 cars, and continues to work on the jet-powered concept for C-X75. It will eventually sell a limited number of them, but the there are strong indications that the majority of cars will use a 'highly boosted' 1.6-litre engine related to the four-cylinder engine Williams and other F1 teams will adopt from 2013. Williams currently uses a Cosworth engine, made in Northampton shire.


The production Jaguar C-X75 (the concept name is being kept "for the time being", but won't necessarily make production) will have plug-in electric drive motors on the front and rear axles and thus have four-wheel-drive. No detail of the power train is available, but it seems probable that the four-cylinder engine, which could easily produce 500bhp-plus, will power the wheels in parallel with the electric motors.