Could one of the first beneficiaries of BMW and Jaguar Land
Rover's next round of collaboration be a Defender sporting a twin-turbocharged
V-8 sourced from the German automaker?
A report from the United Kingdom early Friday points to a
Land Rover Defender packing a 500-horsepower, 4.4-liter BMW V-8 that would give
it the punch to go toe-to-toe with the Mercedes-AMG G63.
According to Auto
Express, a running prototype of this new high-output Defender is already
being tested at Land Rover's engineering facility in the U.K.
BMW and JLR have already confirmed that they plan to collaborate
on future powertrains—both
ICE and electric. Vehicle architecture is expected to be the next focus of joint development as Jaguar especially
wants to expand its lineup of small SUVs and crossovers.
For the past several years, JLR has sourced engines from
former parent company Ford and has looked for new partnerships in this arena
since completing in-house development on its Ingenium line of inline engines.
A Defender SVR would be new territory for Land Rover, and
puts its engineers in the position of playing catch-up to Mercedes-Benz, which
has been building high-output G-Wagens for nearly two decades.
Fortunately, Land Rover is no stranger to putting beefy
engines into SUVs, but most of its experience has been on the luxury side of
the equation. The Range Rover line has carried the performance banner for Land
Rover for years, and the current
Sport SVR model can be equipped with a 575-horsepower supercharged
V-8.
We expect this to be the tip of the iceberg for BMW and JLR
engine collaboration, and this 4.4-liter V-8 could make its way under the hood
of multiple Jaguar and Land Rover models in the next few years.
by Byron Hurd
http://www.boscheuropean.com
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