The Jaguar F-type coupé,
seen here in top-flight R specification and bulging at the seams with
542bhp of supercharged 5.0-litre V8, a set of 20in wheels and tyres and,
for the first time in a production Jaguar, the option of carbon ceramic
brakes.It’s a prototype rather than a full blown production
example, and we were only allowed to drive it on a track - around the
famous GP Circuit de Catalunya at Barcelona - but even so, just a few
brief laps in this car were all it took to twig that it is very much the
star of the show within the new F-type coupé line up Best UK Used Cars
The F-type R coupé is, in Jaguar’s opinion, the model that stands up best beside the Porsche 911, and to the Porsche 911 Turbo
in particular. Its all-aluminium bodyshell is an incredible 80 per cent
stiffer than that of the roadster, which itself has one of the stiffest
structures money can buy Best UK Used Cars. Its power steering is a touch sharper than
the soft-top’s and its suspension only a touch stiffer, but Jaguar
claims both the handing and ride are significantly improved, all of
which stems from having a body that is fundamentally so much more rigid.
The
brakes are also bigger, with ventilated steel discs being fitted as
standard front and rear with the new carbon-ceramic discs featuring as
either £7400 or £8400 options, depending on whether you go for the cast
or forged 20in wheels to go with them. For the first time in Best UK Used Cars,
there’s also a torque vectoring system that tickles the unloaded inside
wheels during hard cornering to help improve traction and reduce
understeer.
And as if that wasn’t enough to distinguish the car
technically, the R also gets a new, second-generation electronic
differential, new gearbox software that further improves the speed and
shift quality of the eight-speed automatic gearbox, plus the option of a
bespoke set of super-sticky, but still road-legal, Continental tyres
for customers who decide to use their car on circuits.Jaguar
expects almost 60 per cent of all F-type sales to be coupés from the
moment this car rumbles on to our streets in late March Best UK Used Cars
What is it like?
You climb into the F-type coupé, wrap your palms around its
thickish but perfectly sized leather steering wheel and think, 'OK, this
is proper, this is really rather a serious sports car actually, time to
engage the very sharpest areas of your mind, otherwise something
terrible might start to happen.'So you rumble down the pitlane,
with the Dynamic Drive program set to its most aggressive mode (dampers,
steering, engine, gearbox and exhaust all dialed up to 11) and
it doesn’t take long for the good bits, no, the brilliant bits to come
flooding out. The performance this thing generates is somewhere between
immense and plain hilarious. With the traction control system still
engaged, it has so much grunt that it won’t actually allow you full
power on the exit of a corner until you’re in fourth gear, sometimes
fifth.
Most road cars, even most fast road cars, feel a bit puny
along the straight bits of GP circuits. But the R coupé feels
worryingly, wonderfully rapid, even along the never-ending main straight
at Barcelona. Genuinely, it feels 911 Turbo fast in a straight line –
to a point where it actually makes you feel a touch uncomfortable
physically to begin with. I can’t imagine how unhinged the R coupé will
feel on the B two-seven-whatever.As ever, you need to turn all
the systems off (or at least you do on a circuit) to appreciate just how
exquisite the rest of the car really is; the chassis, the new E-diff,
the steering, the brakes, the whole shebang. Otherwise, with the
traction and torque vectoring and all the other stuff that will
undoubtedly keep you out of the undergrowth on a wet road switched on,
you can’t get to any of the really good stuff. It remains locked away
inside an electronic cupboard, never to be appreciated. And with 542bhp
in a 1665kg car you absolutely have to provide such protection to
prevent your customers from killing themselves.
But switch it off,
swallow a brave pill, summon the courage to begin opening the throttle
half a second earlier than feels sensible in most corners and...crikey,
the R coupé transforms into one of the most fantastically unhinged but,
vitally, also one of the most fundamentally well balanced, beautifully
resolved sports cars you will ever have the joy of driving. And if you
then take it that little bit further it will show you tricks, do things,
that you never thought possible from a mere road car.And with
the carbon-ceramic brakes fitted (I tried cars with steel and carbon
discs), it also stops like no other Jaguar in history – perhaps not
quite in the same league as the Porsche 911 GT3 for pure stopping power but very much a car in the same vein, and with the same capabiities, elsewhere.
Should I buy one?
On a track, and a track alone for the time being, this is easily the best Jaguar I’ve ever driven.It’s
also one of the best sports cars I’ve come across, period. Without
exaggeration, the F-type R coupé is that good to drive on and beyond its
heady limits.
Jaguar F-type R coupe
Price £85,000; 0-60mph 4.0sec (claimed); Top speed 186mph (claimed); Economy 32.1mpg (combined) CO2 259g/km; Kerb weight 1665kg; Engine V8, 5000cc, supercharged, petrol; Installation Front, longitudinal, RWD; Power 542bhp at 6500rpm; Torque 502lb ft at 3500rpm; Gearbox 8-spd automatic
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