#JaguarF-type

Jaguar is apparently considering bringing the XK out of retirement. Discontinued for the 2015 model year, the automaker didn’t see much reason to keep it around with the F-Type being such a success.

Hanno Kirner, Jaguar Land Rover’s director of corporate strategy, now claims the time has come to commence work on a 2+2 F-Type. However, the brand wants to further re-establish itself as a sports car manufacturer. The F-Type was a good start, and the spiritual successor to the XK will further that goal. But Kirner, along with design head Ian Callum, wants to see a whole family of new sporting vehicles populating Jaguar’s stable within the next decade.

It’s the miserable month of November and Jaguar, like other automakers, wants those pesky unsold 2017 models off its dealer lots. Specifically, it wants a sporty model whose sales cooled off over the summer to vamoose. Be gone.

To make it happen, Jaguar has sent bundles of cash, possibly via Royal Mail, to its U.S. dealer network. Should your dealer prove to be of the generous type, there could be $30,000 in savings to be had.

“The XK being dropped was much to my frustration.”
– Jaguar design director Ian Callum

The Jaguar XK ended its 19-year-long run after the 2015 model year, undone by disappearing demand and the success of the smaller, more affordable Jaguar F-Type. But it wasn’t supposed to be this way, Jaguar design director Ian Callum says. The XK was supposed to roll along in third-gen form alongside the first-gen F-Type.

“The F-Type was never meant to kill the XK,” Callum tells Autocar.

In fact, despite the design work that had already begun on the next Jaguar XK — a car that never materialized — the marketing execs at Jaguar didn’t see the need for two coupes. The third-gen XK never enjoyed any engineering development.

Yet Callum’s outsized influence at Jaguar appears to be producing XK-shaped fruit in Jaguar’s product planning department. While there’ll likely be a new Jaguar F-Type first, you can begin inspecting your local Jaguar showroom for the next Jaguar XK in 2021.

Think of the words “Jaguar” and “sports car” and the mind instantly conjures up images of the flowing XK120 and #NSFW E-Type roadsters of yesteryear, each sporting a properly British straight-six engine under a kilometer-long hood. Okay, okay — the final E-Type variant doubled the cylinder count, but you get the idea.

The tradition of open-top two-seaters continues to this day with the F-Type, albeit with a much more diverse array of engine offerings. As the tech press talks up a future of autonomous people pods, and as crossovers threaten to overwhelm every longstanding brand, Jaguar wants automotive puritans to fear not: the Jaguar sports car isn’t going anywhere.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t change with the times.

You don’t need to suffer from metathesiophobia to be uncomfortable with the wide variety of changes in the modern automotive industry.

Monostable shifters provide no firm detent when you’ve selected Drive, and often require a separate button for Park. Handbrakes that offer a level of modulation are quickly disappearing, replaced by electronic parking brakes. Touchscreens that require multiple menu steps — and seconds in which eyes are diverted from the road — are increasingly part and parcel of new car purchases at high and low price points.

Change is happening so fast and so often and in such unnecessary ways that there was much rejoicing when Honda revealed the 2018 Accord with both a volume and tuning knob, as if that was a bigger story than the dead V6, the discontinued coupe, and the seats being moved closer together to create an aura of space.

Fortunately, Jaguar will remain among the puritanical ranks. Jaguar will stick with the spartans. Jaguar will forego flashy transformations for the sake of primitive positioning. Jaguar’s climate controls will be operated via knobs for the foreseeable future. For old times’ sake.

Jaguar announced at the New York Auto Show a refresh for its F-Type sports coupe that lops two cylinders off the base model V6. It won’t be quite that indelicate of a procedure and the supercharged 3.0-liter V6 will likely remain the most popular choice.

For 2018, the F-Type will provide six individual engine options. The F-Type will persist with its 340 horsepower six-cylinder mill, or 380 horsepower if you option for the R-Dynamic model. Next year’s Jags will also see the return or the previous 5.0-liter V8 trims — including the 550 hp R and 575 hp SVR. However, if you’re more into the F-Type for its charming looks than its bonkers performance, Jaguar will soon offer a 2.0-liter turbo for under $60,000.

Sometimes a manufacturer churns out a base trim that — all things considered — might just be the primo choice for that particular model. Here’s an example.

The Jaguar F-Type has been around since 2013 creating leagues of bug-eyed gearheads whose jaws invariably hit the ground when they finally see one in person. It’s one of those rare cars that looks a gazillion times better in the metal than on paper. The slinky Coupe version showed up in dealers a year later, with Jaguar periodically adjusting trim levels and feature content.

An alert reader (thanks for writing in!) hinted we should use the F-Type for this series, and I was buoyed by the suggestion. Why? It’s well-known I tend to choose the largest engine and loudest colour available when spending my own hard-earned dollars on a vehicle. Yet, the base V6 F-Type appears to make a compelling case for itself.

Does one need to pop for the F-Type’s optional bellowing V8? Let’s find out.

Big news for fans of the Jaguar F-Type (i.e. me). You can now row your own gears.

By sports car standards, Jaguar is selling a lot of F-Types. By Jaguar standards, Jaguar is selling a lot of F-Types.

But Jaguar USA isn’t doing so much with the selling of its other cars.

The maddest, baddest Jaguar F-Type will debut at this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. Focus ST Diesel, consider your thunder stolen.

After nearly a decade of production, Jaguar will finally put down the XK, as budgetary resources and the introduction of the F-Type Coupe make the big cat redundant.

How much power is enough? 300 horsepower? 400? 500? Let’s put it another way? How much is enough to impress people you don’t even like?

Although the upcoming Jaguar XE was previously announced with just a 4-cylinder turbocharged engine, it was hard to believe that Jaguar wasn’t going to put something spicier under the hood of their first proper 3-Series competitor.

Ahead of its debut at both the Los Angeles and Tokyo Auto Shows, Jaguar has unveiled the F-Type Coupe, with a 550-horsepower F-Type R as the flagship.

As a teenager reading “Death in Venice,” I understood the world to be divided between the Aschenbachs and the Tadzios. There are those who gaze, and those who are gazed upon. – David Rakoff

I, as Rakoff would put it, am not a handsome man, though my mother would disagree. If I were to be cast in a James Bond movie, I would probably play the villain. Past lovers have often commented on my intelligence, my charm and my high earning potential as an automotive journalist, but rarely if ever on my physical appearance. I’m at peace with this, for I have discovered that the one automobile that can “increase sexual arousal, particularly in women” is not the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible, as P.J. O’Rourke would contend, but a Jaguar convertible.