Being absent from the brutally competitive sports car market for four decades is the equivalent of being mummified and buried under forty feet of concrete. Gloating about the past is an option, but to rise up from the ashes will need a touch of magic.
After selling its last batch of roadsters in 1974, Jaguar is attempting that impossible revival with the new F-Type. Jag’s new sports car finally makes it to the road, after being sighted innumerable times sporting its famous psychedelic camouflage.
For Jaguar, the F-Type is much more than a simple alphabetic progression. After having had such iconic sports cars like the C-Type, the D-Type and the most famous of them all the E-Type, the current Jaguar team had some serious benchmarks to surpass with the F-Type.
During the last forty years, the other sports car brands have moved on and created their own bests. In the interim, the only Jag that was the closest to a sports car experience was the XKR. However, the new F-Type will change all that and it would be fair to say that sports cars from BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche will face the heat when the F-Type lands here.
Finesse in Finish
The F-Type’s design is remarkable in its ability to be evocative of Jaguar’s sporting heritage, while it also sits pretty next all of the other vehicles from the brand. Most importantly, its design is aspirational and that is the most key element in its appeal. Being a late comer to the party, one which also constitutes only one per cent of total car sales worldwide, the F-Type needs to wean buyers away from established players. That is what the F-Type’s design will help it do.
Of course, there must have been challenges in dealing with the mix of heritage and modern day sports car performance. One of them was apparently the tapering rear end (emulating the E-Type), which reduces the level of downforce compared to a straight edge or gradually sloping upwards rear.
If the F-Type’s alluring design is due to Jaguar Design Director Ian Callum and his team, then realising it and bringing it to life is due to the engineering team at Jag. The solution to the tapering rear for example was a special deployable rear spoiler that increases downforce by 120 kgs. Similarly, the solution to delivering the F-Type’s difficult curves and crisper lines was a special aluminium alloy that allowed better moulding processes.
The F-Type’s design direction is classic Jaguar. To preserve the purity of surfaces and clean lines, Ian Callum and his team have chosen features like deployable door handles that recede and stay flush with the surface. And there are enough collaborative touches brought on by design and engineering that allude to the power and intent of the sports car.
Fit as a Fiddle
The F-Type is a front-engined, rear wheel driven sports car. This automatically increases the level of complexity that needs to be dealt with if it needs to compete successfully with mid or rear engined roadsters. Jaguar’s penchant for aluminium construction has meant that the F-Type gets an all-aluminium body. The structure along with special braces makes the front end 30 per cent stiffer.
Jaguar is also launching the F-Type first as an open roadster and the coupé will join in later. A number of weight reduction tech has been used all around the car to enable a power-to-weight advantage that will work in the car’s favour. The careful engineering has also meant a perfect 50:50 front to rear weight balance. To keep weight low, Jaguar engineers have also chosen fabric as the material for the Z-folding roof instead of metal panels. The roof folds cleanly into the boot in just 12 seconds.
Inside the two-seater F-Type, there is enough double-stitched leather, matt-finished metal and rubberised knobs to meddle with your fingers and feast your eyes on. The low driving position is perfect and there more drama in the colour-changing LED backlit instruments and the auto deploying aircon vents than the average Broadway musical.
Fast and Furious
To experience the F-Type and put it through its paces, I travelled to Spain to join Jaguar’s international media drive program. The drive route took me through some of the most scenic parts of Spain’s Basque country side beyond the towns of Bilbao and Pamplona and into the Pyrenees mountain range. To get a feel of the dynamic prowess of the F-Type I also drove it on the race track at the Navarra Circuit. Over two days of driving, I experienced the base V6 variant, the sportier V6S and the ferociously powerful V8S variant too.
I had seen and listened to the F-Type prototype at the Goodwood Festival in UK last year. But, any doubts I might have had about whether the F-Type can truly take on the likes of the Porsche Boxster was wiped out when I stepped into the plush, leather-laden cabin of the F-Type V6S, started the car and swung into the first corner on the track.
The engines on offer are a supercharged three-litre V6 and a supercharged 5-litre V8. The base F-Type’s V6 generates a peak power of 340 PS and is capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 kmph in 5.3 seconds. Top speed is 260 kmph.
The F-Type V6S sports the same 3-litre V6 engine but at a higher state of tune producing a peak power of 380 PS and a sub-5 second acceleration capability. The needle crosses the 100 kmph mark in 4.9 seconds.
The top of the line supercharged V8 engine produces a peak power of 495 PS and is capable of a remarkable, electronically limited top speed of 300 kmph. The 0 to 100 kmph run can be done in a mere 4.3 seconds. All three engines versions are paired with a quick-shifting, ZF automatic transmission.
On the track and the road, the F-Type surprises with its performance and road holding capability. The variable ratio hydraulic steering is very precise and provides the right amount of feedback. The engine in the base V6 variant of the F-Type feels a bit underwhelming, though there is the characteristic Jaguar sportiness to its handling and dynamics. But the V6S and of course, the fiercely powerful, V8S feel more than adequately quick to take on any of the competitors in this segment. There are also two modes to choose from – a wet, snow or slippery mode and the track mode.
For added agility, the V6S is offered with a limited slip differential integrated with the vehicle dynamic controls and the more powerful V8S is offered with an electronic, active differential that is integrated into the DSC (stability control).
Gear shifts are quick, on a par with some of the dual clutch transmissions in the market currently. While shifting up using the steering mounted paddle shifters there is an addictive amount of response and audible feedback. Talking of audible feedback, the F-Type exhaust note adds a huge amount of drama to the whole driving experience.
Ranging from a gusty burble from the V6S’ central twin trumpet exhaust to a loud, almost thunderous growl from the double twin exhausts of the V8S, there were enough audible signatures that the F-Types were leaving behind in the quite Spanish countryside. In fact, I had to crawl to lower than the speed limit every time I cut into and drove through small villages, so that I won’t end up waking up the entire neighbourhood. As if the engine’s natural exhaust note wasn’t quite enough, there is a button on the centre console that activates a set of exhaust flaps that can deliver more RMS per channel even while you wait at the signal.
The new F-Type’s suspension is predictably been tuned for dynamic on road and track performance. So, it did feel a bit rigid and bouncy on city roads, but offered delightful support during agile driving conditions.
Full and Final
The F-Type is quite a revelation and is really the perfect serving from a brand that is in the midst of a spectacular revival. If the clean yet aggressive design of the F-Type with its wide stance, flared wheel arches and the 20-inch wheels don’t make you go weak in the knees, then the blistering performance and the crackle and burble from the exhaust will.
Jaguar expects most of the buyers of the F-Type to be new to the sports car segment and that the car will fill a new niche. That might well be the case in India too. But, it also has the potential of weaning away buyers from some of the other sports cars in the Rs 1.25 crore plus category. The F-Type should reach Indian shores within the next couple of months.
muralidhar.s@thehindu.co.in