SPECIAL DELIVERY
SVO’S head of dynamics on the making of the Project 8
DAVE POOK’S INTEREST IN CARS – ACTUALLY, MAKE that his obsession with cars – started at an early age. As a 14-year-old he raced radio-controlled cars and always, he now admits, had to have the best set-up car around; had to have the fastest car, full stop. Which meant his fellow RC competitors always wondered what on earth he’d done to make his cars so unbeatably quick.
And even back then the answer was ‘springs, dampers, all the rest of it’, explains Pook.
‘ To be honest, I’ve been fascinated with this kind of thing since childhood,’ he continues, ‘so I guess it was inevitable that I’d end up doing something with vehicle dynamics.’
As a result, and having now worked at JLR for 18 years after moving from a graduate job at Daewoo, SVO’S head of vehicle dynamics also admits that he has ‘ always wanted to do a car like the Project 8 because, you know, everyone in this business wants to do a car like the Project 8.’
So how and precisely when did the idea of building his dream car become reality? And where did he start when attempting to conjure a near-600bhp, four-wheel-drive road racer that can lap the Ring in 7min 21.2sec out of a humble Jaguar XE saloon?
‘ We started on it in September 2016,’ says Pook. ‘ That’s when we started on the computer modelling side. I don’t remember anyone saying that we had to do it with the XE, but the project evolved quite quickly, and everyone involved really liked cars like the M3 CSL, and we realised then that the XE would be the perfect car to do it with.’
Plus, Pook explains, the XE is not only the right size of car, but it has its engine and gearbox in the right place, is pretty stiff to begin with and has fundamentally very sound suspension design. Pook and his team admit they focused on making a rival for the BMW M4 GTS, but the further they went, the more they realised what they were building was more like a rival for the 911 GT3 – an example of which Pook just happens to own.
They knew they’d have to stick with
the familiar 5-litre supercharged V8 engine, albeit in a slightly wilder state of tune, and that this would inevitably be mated to the ubiquitous eight-speed ZF transmission. But on the chassis and suspension side they had a lot more freedom to let rip.
‘On the suspension,’ says Pook, ‘ we spent at least three months in the world of computer modelling. In order for the car to drive in the right way, we needed the suspension to behave in a specific kind of way. We needed it to be stiff in this direction and stiff in that direction, and deliver certain spring rates and have a certain form of damping, and contain certain technologies to help it achieve this.
‘ We spent a long time refining these elements to build up all the parts that we were going to put into the car. We did that pretty quickly, though, and that was one of the most intensive periods of development. We basically went: “This is the car we want to make, this is how we’re going to create it.” And then we went off and designed the parts, made them, and put them on the car. And most of them worked really well, right from the beginning.’
The front-end feel of the car and its ‘positive feel’ were massively improved by having stiffer engine mounts, says Pook. ‘And then the concerns around engine refinement actually turned into a positive for this type of car, as well. So when you’re sitting there at idle, the car has this gentle thrum and throb to it.’ So it’s not a particularly refined car, and is all the better for it, correct?
‘I think it actually adds to its appeal,’ says Pook. ‘It’s part of the character of the car, and it makes you think, “Well this car is actually a bit different, a bit special.”’ But a rival for the mighty 911 GT3? Not quite, perhaps, but then not that far off, either, as we’ve now discovered having driven it for ourselves. And the best news of all is that there will be much more stuff like this from Pook and his team at SVO in years to come. Roll on Projects 9, 10, 11 and beyond.
‘EVERYONE WANTS TO DO A CAR LIKE THE PROJECT 8’