Is Jaguar Building a GT4-Spec F-Type Race Car?

Jaguar’s in-house GT4 customer cars would be the first built by parent company since the 1990s.

Jaguar is back in the business of building GT race cars, it appears. DailySportsCar.com reports that the Jaguar Land Rover will build two GT4-spec F-Types for a privateer in the 2018 British GT Championship.

Jaguar have yet to confirm the report, but DSC say that SuperDry co-founder Jim Holder has commissioned Jaguar’s SVO shop — who built the Project 7 F-Type (below) — to take on the F-Type GT4 builds. British GT has a history of allowing non-FIA-homologated cars to compete in class. However, these F-Types would likely seek homologation to allow competition further afield than the British series.

Because GT4-spec racing is intended as customer racing, Jaguar will be unable to provide any serious factory backing (in theory). However, Holder has raced in GT4 cars but does not own a team outright. That would mean either assembling a team or hiring an existing team to take on the task.

Whatever the case, if the SVO shop is building the cars, it would be the first proper factory-built GT car since the 1990s with the XJ220. All other attempts at building a GT-racing Jaguar have been spearheaded by teams outside of Jaguar’s parent company.

Most notably, Paul Gentilozzi’s Rocketsports took a pair of Jaguar XKR-S RSRs to the 24 Hours of Le Mans earlier this decade. They floundered against high-quality opposition from the likes of Corvette Racing and Aston Martin.

More recently, Emil Frey Racing prepared their own GT3-spec XKR in 2012. Those cars still race today and one even qualified in the Top 10 at last weekend’s Spa 24 Hours. DSC also reports that the Frey team would like to build an F-Type GT3 but have lacked Jaguar’s approval to do so. If Jaguar instead builds a GT4, odds look slim for a GT3 F-Type.

Talk about GT4 and GT3 Jags on the forums.

If and when the F-Type GT4 breaks cover, we’ll have it here for you on JaguarForums.