Jaguar F-type: too heavy, too expensive… and too late?
A jaguar, not a Jaguar
It is difficult to miss the epidemic of road tests for the Jaguar F-type in recent days. Naturally, journalists have been tearing up the tarmac for quite some time but it was only recently that Jaguar lifted the embargo on publication, hence the ensuing tsunami of articles in the press. The outpouring of praise is almost embarrassingly effusive, with nary a word spoken against the car. Quite right – it is difficult to remember a Jag that ever was bad, perhaps just a little misunderstood.
Understanding the F-type should be straightforward. Its job is to rekindle warm memories of the E-Type (XKE in the US) by showing that Jaguar can produce sports cars of eye-popping style and bowel-loosening performance without the wallet-bursting price. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Actually, make that one-and-a-half out of three. Not only is it no bargain, starting at 58,000 of your British pounds for the basic V6-engined version, but it is hardly the style icon of its famous forebear either. Of course it has some lovely touches, and the idea of dual-zone interior styling, one for the driver and one for the passenger, could start a new trend, but is there anything genuinely new here? Well there shouldn’t be – Jaguar has been hiding under its own shadow ever since the XJ-S luxury tourer of 1975 gave everyone such a fright.
This is not to say that the F-type is a carbon copy of the E-Type. Granted, it shows off the same kind of voluptuous curves but aggressive cuts into the metal leave one in no doubt that this car means business, both on the boulevards and also the back-roads of the world. Then again Jaguar should have got it right because they can easily show you one that they did earlier. Not just the XJ41 prototype of the 1980s but the current XK. This too was designed to pick up the E-Type baton, though the company chose to allude to the US market XKE name to indicate where new model’s target audience really was. The modern XK is also close in style to the E-Type/XKE. So, not only has the F-type missed out on the more valuable American XK moniker, it is also too late to snag the iconic styling.
In any event, this may not matter since the days of the XK are surely numbered. Although the purpose of the F-type may be to reignite the passion for driving, it is heavily based on the XK. Since the older car is more gran turismo than XKE, and don’t anyone dare mention the XJ-S again, it is inevitable that the new car should share the same basic characteristics. The road tests show that it is certainly more driver focused but it cannot escape its luxury tourer genes. Neither can the F-type escape the XK’s engineering cost. Being so closely related to the older, premium car, the F-type seems to be too heavy, too expensive and too late.
As if to emphasise the point that the F-type is the young pretender to the XK’s market position, an F-type coupe variant will appear in the next year or so. We will then enjoy the spectacle of an under-sized British car manufacturer with two competing sports car ranges sharing the same basic design and driving ethos, only with one range just a bit smaller, cheaper and sexier than the other. The F-type may take the sports car crown, but only by sticking the knife into the XK. One wonders who is responsible for Jaguar’s product strategy.
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