Jaguar Design Boss Says There's Still Room For V8 Engines

With the industry and the world around it moving rapidly towards electric propulsion and autonomous vehicles, will there be any room left for enthusiast favorites like V8 engines?

Ian Callum thinks so. “Because there will be so few of them, the fuel they burn will be a drop in the ocean,” said Jaguar's design director at the opening of the new National Transport Design Centre at Coventry University.

“I only do 200-300 miles a year in my V8 hot rod, for instance,” he said, as reported by Car. He's assurance is reassuring, especially when you consider that Jaguar makes some one of the best V8s – a supercharged one at that – in the business. The company's 5.0-liter AJV8 produces as much as 600 horsepower in the forthcoming XE SV Project 8, emits a thoroughly intoxicating exhaust note, and has powered countless other Jaguars and Land Rover (not to mention a few Fords, Lincolns, and Aston Martins).

“In my opinion it will be sooner than a lot of people think,” said Callum. “It's inevitable. A lot of that momentum will come from the car industry. But the real transformation will come when local and national governments sort the infrastructure.”

That doesn't have to mean the end of the automobile as we know it, though. “In 1972 nobody wanted cars, because of the oil crisis. People had written them off. It was a difficult time to go into car design,” recalls Callum. “The difference today is that the changes now are something we are more in control of. You have to set the agenda. You have to be a visionary and predict what's going to happen in five, 10, 15, 20 years' time.”