No silenced growl: Jaguar-Land Rover’s supercharged V8 remains

Still in production despite reports suggesting an eventual end by 2025, Jaguar-Land Rover has confirmed that its iconic 5.0-litre supercharged AJ-V8 engine will continue to be made for an unspecified amount of time.

Hailing from 1996, initially with a 4.0-litre displacement, but gradually developed and made available in different sizes with and without forced assistance from as small as 3.2-litres to the current third generation 5.0-litre, the AJ-V8 had been expected to make way for the BMW-sourced 4.4-litre bi-turbo V8 already in-use in the new Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.

At present, three models utilise it; the SVR versions of the Jaguar F-Type and F-Pace with outputs of 423kW/700Nm, and the Land Rover Defender V8 where re-tuning has taken place for a slightly lower 386kW/625Nm.

What Euro 7?

Kept in production by Jaguar-Land Rover’s former parent company Ford, the Blue Oval’s closing of its Bridgend Engine Plant in Wales three years ago saw production of the V8 move to JLR’s Wolverhampton Plant that had been earmarked as the facility where it would eventually bow-out in 2025.

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In conversation with Australia’s drive.com.au though, Jaguar-Land Rover’s Vehicle Program Director, Stuart Firth, when asked about the engine’s, said, “the AJ133 engine is certainly technologically advanced enough to keep us going for quite some time”.

He, however, declined to provide an exact timeline of the engine remaining in circulation, saying the 2025 implementation of the controversial Euro 7 emissions regulations in Europe, which requires an average of 95 g/km across a manufacturer’s passenger vehicle line-up, would be a challenge for the engine to adhere to.

“There is a lot of discussion with other (car manufacturers) around that, making plans to be compliant with that. It’s earlier than we anticipated in Europe,” Firth concluded.

If demand is there…

At the time, it was reported that demand from the Middle East and the United States had been the main reason for JLR keeping the V8 in production as neither these markets have to conforms to the Euro 7 regulations.

The same applies to South Africa, where Euro II standards, abandoned by the EU in 2000, remains in-force with no plans seemingly being made to be more stringent, or introduce measures aimed at improving petrol and diesel quality that continues to be cited as one of the reasons for newer models from Europe not being approved for the local market.

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