2014 Jaguar F-type: Finally, an E-type Successor! - Ignition Episode 65 - video Dailymotion

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On this episode of Ignition

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC]

00:06 It's the letter that we lovers of Jaguars have been waiting for, for well,

00:11 40 years now.

00:12 It's the letter F, as in Jaguar F-Type.

00:15 And we've come here to Pamplona, Spain to drive three versions of the car.

00:19 The base offering, the F-Type S and the F-Type V8 S.

00:24 Though Pamplona is famous for its running of the bulls,

00:27 this will be a running of the cats.

00:29 [MUSIC]

00:39 Jaguar was building sports cars before it was even called Jaguar.

00:56 But its lineage of letter cars started in 1951 with the racing C-Types and D-Types.

01:02 But these two really just set the stage for the incomparable E-Type,

01:06 a car that Enzo Ferrari said was the best looking in the world.

01:09 And here we finally are in its successor, the F.

01:13 [MUSIC]

01:15 First stop is the base car with a 340 horsepower supercharged V6.

01:20 Let's see if it lives up to the legacy.

01:22 [MUSIC]

01:31 So Jaguar has provided a lot of information on the background of this car.

01:35 All kinds of technical specs and details,

01:37 things about the different types of aluminums they use,

01:39 things about rigidity, 30% higher that, and so on and so forth.

01:44 And boy, it's an awful lot of information that I don't think we

01:48 necessarily need to know.

01:51 Cuz the point of a car like this is that it's about enthusiasm and

01:55 emotion and feeling, not really about the type of aluminum they're using,

02:00 the grade or how many rivets are here and bondings are there.

02:04 You know what?

02:05 What we really care about is how this car feels and drives and

02:08 the emotion of the whole experience.

02:10 This is a Jaguar F-Type, for heaven's sakes.

02:12 It's not a science class or an engineering class.

02:15 So how about we just forget about this?

02:17 [MUSIC]

02:23 Here on the road, I must say I'm impressed.

02:26 The connection here between the road and the steering wheel and

02:31 these pedals feels much, much closer,

02:33 much more closely coupled than I was expecting.

02:36 It really does feel like a sports car.

02:40 I think we've been in so many Jaguars in the last few decades that are not

02:43 sports cars, and a few that sort of pretend or hint at greater road going,

02:49 sports car like character, and have disappointed.

02:52 But this one really does honestly feel like a sports car.

02:54 It is a sports car.

02:56 Now when you have full throttle, you also have full noise.

03:00 There's a baffle that opens in the exhaust system, so

03:02 you hear a greater number of DBA out of the engine.

03:06 But it didn't seem sort of silly.

03:09 Some of these systems, it goes from one volume level to like suddenly it's

03:13 cranked up real loud, and that's very contrived.

03:17 But here, that sounded quite natural, quite normal.

03:21 I'm being passed by another one.

03:23 Red cars are always faster than black ones.

03:27 [MUSIC]

03:33 As great as this is, the F-Type S with 40 more horsepower, bigger tires and

03:38 brakes, adjustable shocks, a limited slip diff, and

03:41 a number of set up possibilities, promises even more.

03:44 [MUSIC]

03:54 Now we're in the F-Type S,

04:00 which is an elaboration on the base version we drove earlier.

04:05 [MUSIC]

04:09 What makes this car different is 40 extra horsepower, number one.

04:13 But a few other things, this has adjustable damping on the shocks,

04:17 which allows for a big variation of possibilities there and body motion.

04:24 It has a slightly taller rear axle ratio.

04:27 It has a mechanical limited slip differential for

04:31 better bite through the middle of corners.

04:33 So there's a number of nice enhancements,

04:35 improvements to this car dynamically.

04:37 [MUSIC]

04:44 Now it just might be that this is the sweet spot of the range,

04:48 with extra power but not extra weight or much extra weight.

04:52 This really might be the right car.

04:56 We'll see when we drive the V8 later if that's true or not.

05:00 But this is a very, very nice improvement over the first car.

05:04 Although that was very nice.

05:06 I wouldn't call that an entry level car.

05:08 Really a base car is the wrong description.

05:11 There's nothing much base about it.

05:13 It's really quite a complete and satisfying automobile.

05:16 But this does add a little bit more to the party.

05:18 [MUSIC]

05:24 You know what I'm gonna do right now?

05:25 Let's downshift.

05:26 [SOUND] Did you hear that?

05:32 That's pretty cool, huh?

05:34 We happen to be going by some rock walls.

05:37 And what an opportunity to hear this engine.

05:39 [SOUND] The car really expresses itself audibly in a very British way.

05:47 It sounds like a British sports car should.

05:49 This car has very different proportions.

05:52 It's quite a lot shorter, stubbier.

05:55 It's also a lot wider than the E-Type was.

05:57 That gives us more room here in the cockpit to be comfortable.

06:00 We'd be really uncomfortable right now in an E-Type.

06:03 Probably not going this fast either.

06:05 [MUSIC]

06:15 To really wring this car out, Jaguar brought us to the beautiful Navara Circuit,

06:23 a 15 turn complex built way back in 2010.

06:28 It's gorgeous and very technical and so well groomed that you wonder how

06:32 Spain's unemployment rate could be as high as it is.

06:34 [MUSIC]

06:42 Despite the helpful driving instructor talking into my earpiece the whole time,

06:45 the F-Type was speaking even more clearly.

06:48 [MUSIC]

06:54 Angling into corners, the brakes are solid.

06:57 Tightening the line brings confidence building understeer and

07:00 powering out is a pure joy.

07:02 No wonder Jag put us on the track in this one.

07:05 [MUSIC]

07:15 So Jaguar took us to the track to drive the F-Type S,

07:28 the higher horsepower version, and it was a very interesting experience.

07:33 The car handled wonderfully.

07:35 It was a challenge only because the track has many, many corners and

07:39 many of the apexes are blind.

07:41 So you would have to anticipate and think and concentrate on those things.

07:45 So it was a challenging track from a technical standpoint.

07:48 But actually it was quite a delight because

07:50 the car was actually rather easy to drive, easy to drive quickly.

07:55 It went right where you wanted it to.

07:57 There was understeer when you expected it,

07:59 a little bit of tail out when you expected it.

08:02 The car has a very close couple, very controllable manner to it.

08:07 And as a consequence, you could drive rather quickly around the track and

08:10 not have to think about it too much.

08:12 A lot of cars you have to think about and concentrate on, it's doing this,

08:15 it's doing that, I better be careful of this or that thing.

08:18 But not in this case, the car was just seamless and effortless to drive.

08:22 It was more figuring out where to turn left and turn right,

08:25 that was the challenge.

08:26 [MUSIC]

08:28 And if that wasn't cool enough,

08:30 we were then handed the keys to the most extreme F-type of them all.

08:33 The supercharged V8 S, 495 horsepower, an electronically limited slip differential,

08:40 fat tires, all the ingredients that turned this pussycat of a chassis

08:45 into a very aggressive junk.

08:47 [MUSIC]

08:56 We're in now the F-type V8 S, which is quite a different car from the other two.

09:03 Like the other two, this car has the Jaguar leaping cat on the steering wheel,

09:09 but a more appropriate symbol would be a tiger, a big muscular tiger.

09:13 It's just the wrong cat.

09:15 This thing is a different breed of cat entirely.

09:18 [MUSIC]

09:24 A lot of power, 495 horsepower from a 5 liter V8 supercharged intercooled.

09:30 [MUSIC]

09:36 Like the other car, the V6 engine cars, the sounds are just terrific.

09:41 But here it's much more of a roar, it's a real V8 roar.

09:45 Let's see if we can get a little of that.

09:47 [SOUND]

09:52 And you hear that overrun crackle as well.

09:55 So it just takes all the sounds of the V6 and

09:58 just amps them up by two more cylinders and a lot more power.

10:03 Dynamically, I like this car, it's a lot of fun.

10:07 Very, very different feeling.

10:08 It's not much heavier, but I do notice the extra weight of it in terms of sort of

10:13 the polar moment of inertia effect where there's more weight in the front and

10:17 the rear.

10:18 And being separated, it feels a little bit slower to rotate,

10:22 to respond to steering.

10:24 It feels like a heavier car, even though it's not much of a heavier car.

10:28 So in terms of steering and cornering, you do notice the extra mass.

10:32 [SOUND]

10:35 My first reaction to this car was that it feels like a Mustang GT500 or

10:41 something made in England.

10:44 And you find yourself thinking of that car.

10:47 But actually, after a few miles, I was thinking more of the Aston Martins

10:51 some years ago that went the V8 route and had some similarity to this.

10:56 [SOUND]

10:59 Yeah, there's something in it.

11:00 [SOUND]

11:05 Let's just drive for a minute.

11:07 [SOUND]

11:09 So here's some hard braking, downshift a couple times, boom, boom, boom, yep.

11:14 [SOUND]

11:20 Brake hard.

11:21 [SOUND]

11:24 Some tight corners here.

11:25 [SOUND]

11:28 [LAUGH]

11:33 Again, with stability off, this might be a short drive.

11:37 [SOUND]

11:43 Now here's the unusual thing about the F.

11:46 There's simply no runt in the litter.

11:48 All three are different kinds of sweet spots.

11:51 It simply depends on your taste and wallet.

11:53 But the sweetest of them all would be the middle one, the F-Type S,

11:57 which adds noticeable speed and grip to the base chassis

12:01 without losing any of its sense of sports car agility.

12:04 Is it the E-Type's successor?

12:06 No.

12:07 Today's endless regulations make building that just about impossible.

12:11 However, it's a better F than I ever could have expected.

12:14 [MUSIC]

12:24 [MUSIC]

12:34 [MUSIC]

12:44 [MUSIC]

12:54 [MUSIC]

2014 Jaguar F-type: Finally, an E-type Successor! - Ignition Episode 65

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