Jaguar vs. Mercedes! The 592-HP XE SV Project 8 Battles the 630-HP AMG GT 63 S

It’s the ultimate in car enthusiast pragmatism. You love sports cars, great handling, and the occasional track day. But you went and had kids. You need a car with more than two seats. The budget doesn’t allow for keeping the sports car, so it has to go.

The next best thing? A sport sedan, one that will set a daycare trip record. When it comes to breaking records with a sedan, the zenith is currently represented by the 2019 Jaguar XE SV Project 8 and the 2019 Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-Door Coupe.

Never mind that if you could afford the $188,495 Jag or $196,650 AMG (as-tested prices), you likely have the income to keep the sports car. In this fantasy, you live downtown with a tiny garage and nowhere convenient to store other cars you’ll never have time to drive, you busy captain of industry, you.

How Jaguar got a pedestrian XE compact sedan in sight of 200 grand takes a bit of explaining, but it pencils out. Following the tried and true sports car formula, Jag took its best-handling car, crowbarred in its hottest engine, fitted massive grippy brakes and tires, worked over the suspension, and bolted on wings and splitters and barge boards and diffusers to make it a track monster. Oh, and it’s all-wheel drive now, too. Jag also throws in the 20-inch wheels, carbon-fiber trim, and a bangin’ Meridian sound system to up the value quotient.

AMG took a more direct route and just designed an all-new car meant to be the pinnacle of sport sedans out of the gate. Mostly, anyway. AMG did borrow Mercedes’ E-Class platform as a starting point, but the AMG GT 4-Door was developed separately. For the no-holds-barred 63 S model, AMG threw the kitchen sink at this “four-door coupe.” It has all-wheel drive with a rear-drive-only Drift mode, active aerodynamics, rear steering, air suspension, carbon-ceramic brakes, adaptive dampers, and the same rear anti-roll bar as the AMG GT R actual coupe.

Fitted with test equipment, the investments in both cars have clearly paid off. Its manually adjustable ride height, splitter, and wing set to their high-downforce Track positions, the Jag hit 60 mph in 3.4 seconds on its way to an 11.7-second quarter mile at 120.6 mph. It then stopped from 60 mph in 105 feet, pulled 1.04 average g on the skidpad, and fired off a 23.3-second figure-eight lap at 0.88 average g.

What’s more, we know from previous testing it can go even faster. In low-drag Street configuration, we got a Project 8 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds and through the quarter mile in 11.4 seconds at 122.0 mph. We also saw stopping as short as 101 feet, 1.04 average g on the skidpad, and a 23.2-second figure eight at 0.91 average g. Bit faster than a sported-up XE 35t R-Sport, this one, but 592 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque will do that.

But why have almost 600 horsepower when you can have 630? Same question vis-a-vis just 516 lb-ft and 664 lb-ft. The AMG’s monster of a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 might not have the snarling disposition of the Jag’s 5.0-liter supercharged V-8, but it gets the job done. Its 2.9 seconds to 60 mph and an 11.2-second quarter have the Jag eating dust. It’s worth noting the AMG’s quarter-mile trap speed of 122.4 mph suggests its advantage is in the launch, and the Jag, with its slightly higher 200-mph top speed, is catching up as they cross the 1,320.

It’s the only metric where the Jag is catching anything. Stopping in 100 feet, pulling 1.05 average g, and setting a 23.1-second figure-eight lap at 0.91 average g has the AMG just ahead of the Jag everywhere else regardless of configuration. Call it margin of error if you want, but consider the AMG did it all without the Jag’s manually adjustable race car tricks.

It’s a shame, then, the AMG isn’t more engaging to drive. Oh, it has all the right moves, going around corners far faster than something this big should. There’s some four-door 911 in the way it moves, but only if those two extra doors add 1,200 pounds. Even in its raciest modes, the suspension is soft and slams the bump stops over bad roads. The steering is quick but somewhat disconnected; it hints at power oversteer when you stab the throttle but mostly just feels like it needs more rear grip. The transmission is jerky at low speeds and isn’t nearly as clever as a Porsche PDK gearbox, even in Race mode. The brakes are grabby at low speeds, and after a lengthy, spirited drive (especially a downhill run), they have a habit of coming back smoking like a BBQ joint.

Nearly every editor who drove both cars had the same summary, articulated most succinctly by road test editor Chris Walton: “I was able to match the pace of the Jaguar with half the effort, half the aggression, and half the involvement. It is clinically, technically competent, yet I’d be OK if I never drove it again.”

We had to pry the Jag out of those same editors’ hands. In the finest tradition of street cars turned into barely street-legal track cars, the Jag feels like a katana in a world of broadswords. The steering is absolute precision with remarkable feedback for an all-wheel-drive car. The chassis is go-kart stiff and has little suspension travel, but the dampers turn it all into grip and poise. You can bang it off bumps at full throttle absolutely sure it’s going to come down without missing a beat. It doesn’t beat you up; it beats the road up. It feels alive and alert at every moment. The throttle is sharp, the brakes will have you over-slowing for corners, and the rear end is always ready to give you a bit of slip angle if you press it.

Walton, again speaking for the majority: “You are involved in and responsible for every action this car takes. There’s zero slop to cover mistakes. It’s a true driver’s car.”

A car that’s as wickedly quick as it is engaging to drive is a good bet to set a lap record—and the Jag has, several times. Just over a year ago, Jaguar brought a Project 8 prototype and our champion race driver Randy Pobst to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca to break the production sedan lap record, and break it they did. With a 1:37.54, it took basically a full second out of the reigning sedan champion, the 2016 Cadillac CTS-V.

But as we prefer to validate track record claims as a neutral third party, we brought Randy, the Jag, and the AMG back to Laguna Seca for our annual Best Driver’s Car event to see what’s what.

This time, the Jag went even faster. It took more than half a second out of its previous best effort with a 1:36.96, further cementing its record claim.

“It’s very racy,” Randy said. “It’s firm, it has quick steering response, very little body roll. A lot of shock damping. Big, strong engine, lots of torque, close gear ratios.

“The car is very, very, very stable in general,” he continued, “except for corner entry with trailing throttle. It has a little trailing throttle and trail brake oversteer. And so I had to be a little careful with that. In the middle of the corner, it gets a little pushy under power, and I think the all-wheel-drive system could be more rear-biased, maybe. The thing is, when it loses grip, it’s kind of skatey. If a car’s too stiff, it can be kind of skatey, if it has a lot of compression damping. The car has a lot of spring in it, but it’s not harsh, it’s not crazy.

“It was not disturbed by bumps. The best corner for that car was Turn 6, which is the toughest corner on this track, because it’s faster, and it has a yump on the way in that gets the car light. The Jag was extremely stable through there. I think the understeer didn’t show up as much because it’s not a long corner. It’s more like a kink, and the understeer shows up in a long corner, like Turn 2 and Turn 5. Funny thing is in Turn 9—which is a long corner, but it’s a little bit decreasing, and it’s steep downhill—the car wants to over rotate, that trailing throttle behavior shows up.

“Braking was way above average. It stopped very well and never overran anything. I usually under-ran it, I usually was braking a little too soon. So I liked the braking a lot, good pedal feel, good firm pedal, quick response on the brakes.”

All the good things Randy had to say about the Jaguar couldn’t save its lap record, though. After a false start with the wrong tire pressure and drive mode settings for his liking, Randy took the AMG out a second time and snatched the record away with a 1:36.26 lap. Seven-tenths of a second, in racing parlance, is an eternity.

“It actually feels less racy than the Jaguar does,” Randy said. “The Jaguar is stiffer. This car’s a little more compliant, which I think actually improves the grip on track, but it allows the car to bottom out quite hard. I really felt it hit bottom coming down the Corkscrew.

“It’s got a lot of power,” he said. “That’s part of it. Jag has a lot of power, too, but this has more. It’s just better balanced through the whole corner. I think it’s pulling more g all the way through, whereas the Jag had that little oversteer and then a little understeer. The AMG is better balanced all the way through. Less understeer. I still have to be patient in the slow corners, wait for the car to turn. It doesn’t want too much power and creates understeer with a little power, or oversteer with a lot.

“The only thing that upsets it is a high corner entry speed. The car does not like trying to slow down in the middle of the corner. I found I had to take off a lot of the speed on the way in before I got to the apex to avoid the understeer. But the car has this great steering response, and it just feels a lot lighter than it is, and very, very powerful.

“I wanted a firmer brake pedal. I wanted quicker, instant response, and it wasn’t quite instant, but then the braking power was quite strong. It takes a lot of pedal effort. It’s extremely stable under braking, doesn’t move an iota. Given the power and the weight, I think it stops incredibly well, frankly.”

It was a bit tougher for Randy when we asked him to help us rank the cars. As a racer, his natural inclination is always toward the car that’ll give him a faster lap time. Balancing track and street impressions, though, he came to the same conclusion we did.

The AMG is an incredible technical achievement and truly does feel like a sports car stretched into sedan shape. But the character has been stretched out of the sports car, too. The Jag may need a little more fine-tuning to claw back those seven-tenths of a second on the track, but you can work on that with all its adjustable components.

Beyond the limited confines of the track, though, the Jag is far more exciting, engaging, and rewarding to drive every moment of every day. We’re OK with being the second-quickest sedan at the track day when it means we’ll be having 10 times the fun and still be right on the quicker one’s tail.

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Source: WORLD NEWS