Should this be Jaguar's future Le Mans car?

The year is 2030. The Le Mans 24 Hour race is on the back foot with spectators, after an ill-fated period of autonomous, remote-controlled racecars filling its grids. As manned cars return to La Sarthe, and the race’s 107^th anniversary, Jaguar unveils its contender, the SS-107.

This is it. And that is its backstory, creatively concocted by its designer, Serdar Soyal. If you'd not guessed, this isn’t real, we’re not in 2030, and it’s got nothing to do with Jaguar. But if this is how a Jag endurance racer were to look in a decade or so’s time, you’d be happy, right?

There’s much technology to digest, even if it has all been drawn in Photoshop as opposed to actually manufactured. The seats are made of a special gel that keeps the driver’s temperature spot on, while the windscreen is made of hydrophilic, self-cleaning glass. No word on if there’s a solution for drivers needing a wee during a night-time double stint, mind.

Plenty of clever aero and lightweight construction dominates on the outside, with Serdar claiming a 465kmh – or almost 290mph – top speed. If that’s with the chicane still in the middle of the Mulsanne straight, it’ll take some balls to reach that. And then slow back down again…

It’s all electrically powered – none of that old-fangled petrol or diesel here – with the batteries actually within the wheels. So getting fresh batteries and ‘refuelling’ is as a quick as a tyre change. Because it is a tyre change.

For all the talk of the (not real) tech, though, we’re most intrigued by the way it looks. Which is, to say, staggering. Serdar cites the wonderful old Jag XJ220 as inspiration, though we’re struggling to see it. This thing is way more dramatic than even that.

Like it? Reckon Jaguar itself should be taking note?

Images: Serdar Soyal