Picking up the pace

ENJOY IT WHILE you can. The F-Pace SVR is one of that dying breed, a big SUV powered entirely by fossil fuel, which is obscenely fast and has a 5.0-litre that makes a thunderous roar. Less a Jaguar, more a sabre-tooth tiger – and soon to be as comprehensively extinct.

Official figures for the SVR are 0-60mph in 3.8sec and a top speed of 178mph. Average fuel consumption is said to be 23mpg, which is actually not bad; some four-cylinder hot hatches would do no better. But you don’t buy an SVR for the fuel economy, and the button used to select ‘EV’ on a mild-hybrid F-Pace is here repurposed to switch the exhaust note from moderately loud to full-on NASCAR.

Which, of course, is fun when you’re in the mood. The 542bhp V8 has a bestial soundtrack – grunty, muscly, bassy, popping on the overrun – which is activated automatically when the Dynamic mode is selected. It still sounds pretty good in Comfort mode, although the ride feels (ironically) slightly outside of its comfort zone here, being a bit lumpen and out of sorts. The car drives better all-round in Dynamic, even if you’re not pushing on.

As a sucker for anything with a V8, I loved the SVR – but even I was left wondering whether I could live with it on a daily basis. An F-Pace P400 mild hybrid costs from £56,335 and has a pleasantsounding straight-six, whereas the SVR is another 20 grand on top of that. Better to have the P400 as your daily and spend the difference on a classic V8 toy?