2023 Jaguar F-Pace SVR Edition 1988 First Drive: An Epic Journey to a Legendary Racetrack

It's a warm Saturday afternoon in Paris and I've just been handed the keys to a 2023 Jaguar F-Pace SVR Edition 1988. "We'll pick it up in London on Tuesday morning," say the folks from Jaguar Special Vehicle Operations before waving goodbye.

The Edition 1988 version of the Jaguar F-Pace SVR SUV celebrates an epic Jaguar win in the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, a victory that ended a 31-year drought in the world's greatest sports car race for the storied British marque. The Edition 1988's deep purple-black paint—Midnight Amethyst is the color—with gold detailing pays homage to the purple and yellow highlights on the livery of the Jaguar XJR-9 that crossed the finish line in first place shortly after 3 p.m. local time on Sunday, June 12, 1988.

The race had been a close-run event. Dutchman Jan Lammers, who had shared the No. 2 Jaguar with fellow Formula 1 driver Johnny Dumfries and promising newcomer Andy Wallace, began the final lap just 100 seconds ahead of the menacing Porsche 962 driven by talented all-rounder Klaus Ludwig, whose teammates were five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell and the fast and versatile Hans Stuck. Lammers held on, though, and Jaguar finally ended Porsche's seven-year Le Mans domination.

That year was the second-last without any chicanes on the famous Mulsanne Straight to slow the cars. During the race, the slippery WM-P88 Peugeot driven by French driver Roger Dorchy hit 252 mph just before the gentle right-hand kink—now the site of the second chicane—that led into Mulsanne Corner.

The Jaguar XJR-9 topped out at 245 mph. "They tell me you can overtake slower cars at the kink without lifting," Wallace told the U.K. 's Motor Sport magazine at the time, "but I'll practice that when the track's clear." This is the same Wallace who 30 years later would drive more than 600 miles at more than 245 mph while testing for his record-breaking 304-mph run in the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+.

It's an intimidating place, Le Mans. Always has been. Always will be.

Photographer Charlie Magee and I are not bound for Le Mans, however, despite the French circuit's obvious connection with the 2023 Jaguar F-Pace SVR Edition 1988. Instead, we head to the site of another French racetrack, now long-forgotten. A track that was arguably even more intimidating than La Sarthe, and that for 30 years many regarded as a rival to Germany's legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife: the Circuit de Charade, near Clermont-Ferrand in central France.

Completed in 1958, the Circuit de Charade swooped and swept around two of the extinct volcanoes that provide the dramatic backdrop to the city where the Michelin brothers founded their eponymous tire company in 1889. The last race held on it was in September 1988, just three months after the XJR-9's epic Le Mans triumph.

Charade packed 50 corners and more than 500 feet of elevation-change into a single, mad five-mile lap. "I don't know a more wonderful track," said Stirling Moss after winning a Formula 2 race there in August 1959. Indeed, "The circuit of Charade ranks among the best and sorts out those who can drive from those who are just trying to kid us," as the doyen of F1 reporters, Denis Jenkinson, wrote in 1972.

And Jenks, who had ridden along with Moss to win the 1955 Mille Miglia, one of the greatest drives in motorsports history, was right; just four F1 grands prix were held at the Circuit de Charade between 1965 and 1972, and each was won by a driver who would finish the year as world champion: Jim Clark (1965), Jochen Rindt (1970), and Jackie Stewart (1969 and 1972).

It's more than 250 miles from Paris to Clermont-Ferrand, most of it on smooth and beautifully maintained autoroute. Once clear of the mercifully light Saturday afternoon Paris traffic, the big Jaguar settles down to a relaxed 86-mph cruise, the engine turning just 2,000 rpm in eighth gear. It could go much faster, of course—its top speed is 178 mph—but the gendarmerie tends to vigilantly police the 80-mph speed limit, so discretion is the better part of valor.

The 2023 Jaguar F-Pace SVR Edition 1988 is based on the revamped F-Pace SVR that appeared in early 2021, a car we regarded as a thoughtful rework of the 2016 original. Its charms are still evident as the Edition 1988 rolls through the French countryside.

The Pivi Pro infotainment system consigns the clunky, miserable user experience of the old setup to the dumpster. The heated and cooled SVR performance seats not only look the part but prove notably comfortable, and the 542-hp supercharged V-8 under the hood growls agreeably when I punch the Jag away from the occasional toll booth.

One gripe: The polished aluminum trim on the center console reflects eye-searing glare if the sun is in the wrong place.

Smooth, and with power to spare, the F-Pace SVR Edition 1988 feels like a car that can cross continents in a single afternoon, a grand tourer made just that bit grander by the special paint and trim finishes that comprise the Edition 1988 package, and by its exclusivity.

Jaguar will build just 394 examples. Why 394? That's the number of laps the Le Mans-winning XJR-9 covered in 1988, traveling the equivalent of 3,313.7 miles, roughly the distance from Miami to Seattle, in 24 hours. Also, the XJR-9's 245-mph top speed, expressed in the metric system, is … 394 kph.

The original F-Pace SVR's engine made 502 lb-ft of torque, and the torque peak was trimmed in the lower gears to protect the transmission. As part of the 2021 SVR revamp, the eight-speed automatic was fitted with the more robust torque converter from the thuggish Jaguar XE SV Project 8, which allowed SVO engineers to bump peak torque to 516 lb-ft, available from 3,500 to 5,000 rpm.

As such, there's just a fraction more immediacy in the way the F-Pace SVR Edition 1988 grunts out of corners, and crisper response from the transmission, even in the regular drive mode. Dynamic mode sharpens everything up nicely, and despite the forged aluminum 22-inch wheels and low-profile Pirelli P Zero tires—265/40 up front and 295/35 at the rear—the ride remains on the civilized side of firm.

The small rotary controller to the right of the redesigned shifter makes switching between drive modes a simple, intuitive twirl of the fingertips, rather than the frustrating hunt-and-peck exercise on a screen that it was in the original SVR.

Sunday morning dawns bright and sunny and we're on the road early, bound for Charade, the village after which the circuit was named. There's still a racetrack in the valley to the south of the village that uses part of the original layout. Now in private hands, it's closed today, but more than three miles of the legendary old Charade, still public road, is free to explore.

Local enthusiasts had in 1954 proposed laying out a street circuit in Clermont-Ferrand itself. But the disaster at Le Mans in 1955, when barely two-and-a-half hours into the race Pierre Levegh's Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR careened into the crowd on the start-finish straight and killed 83 spectators, put paid to that idea. All racing in France was canceled.

When racing resumed in 1956, 1950 Le Mans winner Louis Rosier was invited to work out the course for a potential circuit using public roads in the nearby volcanic mountains. At one point the proposed track ran six miles, but to avoid taking the race cars through the villages of Thèdes and Manson, the decision was made to build a new road from a corner near Thèdes, along a valley and up a hill to Charade.

Most of that road is now part of the permanent circuit, but we find a concrete wall that was part of the original construction on the outside of an uphill right-hand curve on the public road across from the circuit entrance. Faded remnants of 1960s-style BP logos are still visible; ghosts in the sunshine.

The road leads through the sleepy little village of Charade before plunging down the northern flank of the Puy de Charade, the larger of the two extinct volcanoes around which the old circuit looped. The corners just keep coming, sweeps and loops and kinks and hairpins, one after another, all the way down to the banked right-hander at Gravenois, the circuit's lowest point.

It's here where, despite its fearsome reputation, the Circuit de Charade claimed its only life in a car race—and there's a Jaguar and Le Mans link.

In the 1959 Formula 2 race won by Stirling Moss, British driver Ivor Bueb's BRP Cooper-Borgward ran wide on the exit of the banked turn, left the track, and hit the banking just beyond it. Bueb, who'd shared the winning Jaguar D-Type with Mike Hawthorn in the tragic 1955 Le Mans race, was thrown out of the car. He died of his injuries six days later

Such was the constant onslaught wrought by Charade's topography that, during practice for the 1969 French Grand Prix, several drivers complained of motion sickness and opted to wear open-face helmets. The latter course of action was so they could throw up, claimed 1967 world champion Denny Hulme (who would qualify his McLaren-Ford on the front row here for the 1972 French Grand Prix at an average speed of more than 103 mph).

It's easy to see why. Even at (sort of) road-legal speeds, Charade is relentless. In Dynamic mode and with 90 percent of the torque sent to the rear wheels, the Jaguar F-Pace SVR Edition 1988 punches hard out of the corners, its supercharged V-8 snarling like an angry lion. With grunt and grip to spare, the SVR Edition 1988 is happy to play when the mood takes you.

Among the engineering changes in the 2021 SVR upgrade was the addition of an electric brake-booster. The shortened pedal travel and improved feel are invaluable on the long downhill stretches, especially into the decreasing-radius corners, as are the recalibrated steering and revised suspension bushings, all of which endow the big Jag with the agility and composure needed to cope with the constant directional changes.

The last F1 race on a track without Armco safety railing was held at the Circuit de Charade in 1970. Armco was installed for the 1972 race, and sections of it still survive near the junction of the D5 and the D767 roads on the southern flank of the volcano. The D767 was cut along the shoulder of the Puy de Charade to join the road to Charade village near the old concrete wall, allowing the development of the shorter, safer, permanent Charade circuit.

A section of the old track, now abandoned and overgrown, runs from the junction to the fence at the eastern end of the permanent circuit. And there, among the brambles, is 1972's Armco.

My heroes raced within inches of it—Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Hulme, Jochen Rindt, Chris Amon, Jacky Ickx, Emerson Fittipaldi, Graham Hill, and Bell. I can almost hear the bark of the Ford Cosworth DFV V-8s that powered most of the field, as well as the howl of the Ferrari and Matra and BRM V-12s, and see the flashes of green and red and blue and white paint.

That 1972 race also ended the career of a promising Austrian driver, blinded in the left eye on lap six by a hard chip of volcanic gravel that pierced his visor after it was kicked up by the car ahead.

Helmut Marko is today better known as Red Bull Racing's Chief Advisor and Head of Driver Development, but back then he was himself no small talent behind the wheel. A few weeks earlier, he'd set the lap record on the 45-mile-long Targa Florio circuit in an Alfa Romeo T33 sports car—the day before he qualified his BRM F1 car here in sixth.

Rosier never got to see the Circuit de Charade in action; he was killed in a race at Montlhéry in 1956. But on Monday, after we'd been given access to the permanent circuit—sadly only to look at, not drive on—we visit his memorial at Rosier corner.

The modern Circuit de Charade channels the original's spirit. That's hardly surprising given the fact the 1.7 miles between the Epingle de Champeaux and Virage du Manson corners is the original. Overall, the track today has 18 corners on a 2.5-mile lap, and elevation change of 170 feet.

The modern Charade has Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica, Ferrari 296 GTB, and Porsche 911 GT3 written all over it. Sadly, its location, tucked away in central France—and the fact there's not a lot of margin for error if you make a mistake—means it's unlikely any automaker will be brave enough to host a press launch here. Pity.

It's now 1 p.m. and we have a Eurotunnel booking for tonight. Calais is more than 450 miles away. Time to point the 2023 Jaguar F-Pace SVR Edition 1988 north and head for the coast. Time for some more grand touring.