Jaguar F-Type at the motor show

The first true Jaguar sports car for 40 years vies for centre stage at the show. The F-Type makes only its second public appearance anywhere in the world. A reinvention of the classic ’60s star, the E-Type, it’s a sure sellout when it gets here next year. 

We’ve already seen, touched, explored and sat in the F-Type, which is the work of design guru Ian Callum. Everything points to a top-quality British roadster, priced between Porsche’s Boxster S and 911 Cabriolet, with a choice of three engines - and a supercharged V8 F-Type RS and coupe also in the car’s near future.

The F-Type has classic sports car proportions, but is much more modern and muscular than the E-Type. Sure, there are nods to the ancestor car - look at the muscular haunches and the tail lamps - but Callum says the F-Type is something completely new.

“It’s a car we’ve wanted for a long time. It makes you turn your head,” he says. “You’ll know from 200 yards away that this is a Jaguar sports car. I’ve never owned a car that I’ve designed before, but I’m going to pay my own money for one of these.”

Callum is expected in Sydney for the show, accompanying his baby on the quick trip from its global unveiling at the Paris motor show. He is quick to put the F-Type into perspective alongside the E-Type that inspired it. “If you want an E-Type then you should buy an E-Type.

This is something different and better. You will like driving it far more than driving an E-Type.” The F-Type is a true two-seater, not a 2+2 like Jaguar’s XK roadsters, with a tightly drawn body that uses a folding canvas top that can be opened or closed in 12 seconds at up to 50km/h.

It will come with a basic V6 engine, a supercharged V6 and a V8, with Jaguar’s latest eight-speed automatic gearbox — tweaked for much sportier shifts than the XJ limousine - and classic rear-wheel-drive. The boot is a 200-litre space that’s good for a single set of golf clubs.

The press preview of the F-Type starts dramatically when a car roars down a specially built driveway at a house on the side of the River Thames, about an hour from London.

“You have to see a car in motion for the first time,” Callum says. The impact is immediate. The F-Type is a little like a Ferrari California, at least in the basic shape and proportions, but looks far more masculine than the Italian sports car.

Though pumped-up, it’s also elegant and a little soft. Jaguar plans for the F-Type to lead a huge new-model push that includes an updated XJ and F-Type, which get a four-cylinder engine and new V6s for 2013, and is confident it has the goods.

It is very impressive and a great looker, from the giant air intake in the nose through to the tightly drawn tail, which has central exhausts for the V6 and side exits for the V8. “We started out as a sports car company. Without a sports car, Jaguar is just not Jaguar,” says Adrian Hallmark, the global brand director for Jaguar.

Jaguar F-Type
Price: about $250,000
Date of release: 2013
Engine: choice of V6s or a V8
Thirst: untested