Jaguar F-Type : Iconic E-Type successor roars to life

Fifty long years it’s been since the world first laid eyes on the E-Type and even today some of the most profound personalities from the automotive industry struggle with words when it comes to pinpointing what exactly makes Jaguar’s first ever two-seater sports car that came to life as far back as 1961 a timeless work of automotive art.

Its signature long hood and distinctive face that resembles a hungry catfish on the verge of gobbling its prey didn’t just inspire sports car designers from the 60s but many decades thereafter. Point in case being Tesla Motors’ Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen, who quite categorically attributes the E-Type’s super-clean lines and nice elongated front as being his design guidelines when sketching what ultimately turned into the Pontiac Solstice, a roadster that went into production 44 years later. It incidentally was nominated for the North American Car of the Year and the Design of the Year for 2006. Sadly though, the once GM-owned division is no more in existence; the spirit of the iconic E-Type, however, lives on till date.

With such a strong legacy to fuel their pride, Jaguar design top boss Ian Callum and his team were presumably jittery when they began sharpening their pencils for what was to be the resurrection of Jag’s 2-door sports car success story, albeit in the 21st century.

Behold the Jaguar F-Type. It’s not exactly unchartered territory for Jaguar, but then there is the half a century hiatus to take into consideration. Adding to that ‘Angst’ is the fact that the competition, both national and international, have been upgrading, re-designing and perfecting their products in the same territory for those 50 long years, and so even a heritage smeared car maker like Jaguar is left with more than just a few drops of sweat trickling down its brow.

Out of the den and hungry for prey

The Jaguar F-Type, from when we first laid eyes on its camouflaged body around the same time last year, left most wondering exactly how special it really would turn out to be. Its long swooping bonnet, crisp lines, not to mention the slender rear-light cluster so clearly has it declaring its accomplished ancestry; and the sound of that wonderfully supercharged petrol unit just as it ought to have been. From international on-road footage you truly are left wondering if it is rails rather than radials that keep this convertible so tightly tied to the tarmac even at speeds in excess of 250km/h. 

A historic sprint test in Jabbeke, Belgium, at the hands of 24 hours of Le Mans race-winning driver Andy Wallace and a few more international motor shows later the ravishing roadster from Birmingham is presently burning some serious rubber on public roads and from the looks of it, everyone seems to be in quite a frolicking frenzy about its very apparent arrival.

What’s even more exciting is that there isn’t just one type of F out there, which you have no choice but to acclimatise yourself, but three very different iterations to choose from, each one differentiating itself from the other with more than a difference in PS.

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The three musketeers!

For the recently turned wealthy young people, who only dreamed of owning a Jag till yesterday, there is a 3.0-litre V6 supercharged base F-type model producing 340PS, which while being at the bottom of the power pyramid will take you from nought to just under 100km/h in 5.1 seconds and hit a top speed of 259km/h. For the more seasoned lead footer, there is a better tuned 380PS version, which gets the ‘S’ moniker to help you make out the difference from the outside (Read : Jaguar F-Type technology showcase). 

But there’s a hell lot more that you can do with the F-Type V6 S version compared to the entry-level model. The chassis, suspension and steering feel get sharper, the gear shifts quicker and the exhaust notes louder and all the more pleasing to the ears. Easily customisable via the new Dynamic Drive system visible on the F-Type’s sizeable multi-colour touchscreen display, the S version is injected with proper sports car DNA. 

It’s also much quicker on its feet compared to the standard F-Type capable of doing a 0-100km/h in just a shade over 4.8 seconds and comfortably hitting a top whack of 275km/h. How exactly did Jaguar manage to squeeze out such eye-twitching performance figures from a front-engined rear-wheel drive convertible sports car? 

The answer is plain, simple all-aluminum bodywork; fourth-generation mind you! That and the company’s brilliant weight optimisation process, which has managed to shed kilos in almost every aspect of the vehicle’s architecture – from the Roll protection system and the foldable roof all the way to the windscreen and even the comfortable carpets on the inside.

But imagine what all of that weight advantage would help you achieve in the same car that replaces a purring V6 with a roaring 5.0-litre supercharged V8. This is the range-topping F-Type V8 S version, where F should ideally be an abbreviation for furious. It produces 495PS of power and will reach just under 100km/h in a scant 4.2 seconds and then just keep going faster and faster till the needle on the speedometer begins to tremble almost at the 300km/h mark.

This is the real monster of the three and in comparison moves, sounds and handles absolutely mental to put it mildly, of course. While hugely benefiting from a lightweight aluminum body structure like its V6 siblings, the V8 S is by itself a far more competent and technologically superior animal. You already know it’s the most powerful of the lot, but complemented by its super performance braking system, a more responsive steering, active exhaust system with four outlets, a stiffer track-focused suspension setup and its electronic differential rather than a mechanical one like on the V6 S makes it ideally suited for anything but unregulated public roads. 

What makes the ‘F’ a special type of Jaguar

At 2,622mm the F-Type has an almost identical wheelbase as compared to the Aston Martin V8 Vantage S and the Audi R8 V8 Coupe. However, despite its very low seat positioning, the F-Type at 1,296mm is a rather tall and well-planted roadster.  

The snug cockpit of the F-Type is a really nice place to be. The main centre console with those beautiful rotary dials for climate control settings and deployable air vents look exactly as cool as they will keep the temperature of your cabin. The touchscreen display, besides giving you directions and playing your favourite music, allows you to manually change steering, suspension, engine and gearshift settings on the car. You can even change the colour of the interior lighting for Pete’s sake!     

The ideal 50:50 weight distribution, a fabulous 8-speed Quickshift gearbox and steering wheel mounted paddles, the Z fold hood, a deployable rear spoiler that rises in excess of 96km/h, deployable door handles, and an optimised suspension geometry are also essential ingredients that come together in such harmony to make the F-Type a very special kind of sportscar. 

Who will buy it and why

Already on sale in several overseas markets, the F-Type in terms of pricing has been positioned somewhere between the Porsche Boxter S and the roomier Porsche Carrera Cabriolet. Strangely enough, even with two lesser seats and even lower room for extra luggage as compared to the Carrera Cabriolet, the entry-level V6 model of the F-Type almost produces as much power as the German 4-seater convertible. 

Rest assured ‘Callum unfiltered’ as the F-Type is called in-house will demand a premium for all that extra horsepower, and Porsche buyers would be wondering if it’s really worth making that switch. Even if recent spy shots of the car caught testing around town are to be taken into consideration, buyers in India will have to wait for sometime before the F-Type officially arrives on our shores. 

All in all, the F-Type is a solid step forward for Jaguar and would appeal to both younger buyers and the more serious sportscar enthusiast type, not simply because it’s a bit too seductive looking even for a sportscar, but more so as this is a Cat that is truly young at heart, and yet looks sophisticated enough to play its part.