Driven: Jaguar F-Type

In 1961, British car manufacturer Jaguar created one of the most revolutionizing cars, the E-Type. This was a car that made everybody crazy. It caused people to splash the cash even after only seeing it at a motor show. The design, performance and quality was way ahead of its time, no wonder why it appealed to so many. A lot has happened in the meantime though. It has been over half a century since then and have we barely seen a Jag shine as hard as the E-type must have done those days. However, don’t leave in a strop just yet,  Jaguar made a good deal with Tata Motors. Give Jaguar more money, and good things start to happen.

They call it the Jaguar F-Type, and the good news is, we’ve driven it! All three of them! 

The Jaguar F-Type may look small, but don’t take it for a midget, because if anything, it’s got to be one of the most powerful cars (less than £100K) on the market! And what sort of punch does it pack under the hood? Well, the Jaguar F-Type comes with 3 different engines, a 3.0-liter V6,  3.0-liter Supercharged V6 and an absolutely mad 5.0-liter Supercharged V8 .

HANDLING

The Jaguar F-Type features double-wishbone suspension at the front and rear with adaptive dampers and fully adjustable suspensions settings to keep the geekiest of drivers happy. As well as tinkering and tweaking the suspension settings, the F-Type has a total of 25 different driving mods to suit all road conditions and driving styles. On the road, it feels very different to most cars today, the V6 is the cruiser out of the bunch, adequate performance and handling, just a car you can use everyday.

The V6 S isn’t so subtle, we think it’s the perfect blend between handling and horsepower, think of it as a ‘handling to horsepower ratio’, it’s just the perfect amount, you know exactly what the car wants to do every time you go around a corner. The V8 S on the other hand is much more different. That ‘handling to horsepower ratio’ just doesn’t matter with this car because if anything, it has more horsepower than it can actually handle, this car will drift at any given second, it’ll spin its tires in third gear if you push it hard enough! The ultimate hooning car!

It seems the F-Type has to live up to a lot seeing as its predecessor, the E-Type, was a design success back in the 1960’s.. In fact, even Enzo Ferrari himself said that the E-Type was the most beautiful car ever made. Forward to 2013 and we have the F-Type, is it a design success? Is it a car that a high-ranking founder from another manufacturer say it’s the most beautiful car ever made? Well, in this day and age of rivalry and hatred, we don’t think so, but to our  eye, it has the potential to put Aston Martin’s to shame. 

It has the same key design elements from the E-Type, such as the long bonnet, big shoulders and distinctive taillights. All-in-all, it just looks like Jaguar done an absolutely epic job on modernizing that old brute.

After that, the similarities end, the F-Type is absolutely brand new from the ground up, and the higher you go with the engines, the better the exterior gets. The V6 and V6 S just about only have rim sizes to set them apart, but once you get onto the V8 S, you get some mean black rims, unique S badging (also on V6 S) and quad tailpipes instead of the usual two, which obviously helps that beatly V8 breath.

Don’t get confused though, this may be only slightly bigger than a Boxster, but it is no Boxster rival. If it was, the Boxster would be put to shame in no time. Despite the size, this car is actually a Porsche 911 rival, though it’s hard to believe, Jaguar have almost cracked it.

The interior makes the F Type look bigger than it is. It incorporates details from its big daddy, the XJ, and the odd thing is, it fits very well! The seats are very different to other Jags as they are very supporting sport seats that hold you in place very well while blasting around a corner. The vents are electronically funcioned like the XF, only instead of flipping around they now rise up from the dash, a bit like Audi’s sound system.

The leather used on the interior is very high quality, almost Bentley like. When you look at a roadster, and then you’er about to climb in, only one thing goes through your head, “Will I fit?”, but this is no MX-5, almost anyone can get in to an F-Type and go.

Hmm, what do we think of the F-Type? We have absolutely no objections to it, we just can’t seem to think of any negatives about this car. Well done Jaguar, we look forward to seeing the Coupe soon!