This new Kitty just oozes sex appeal
It’s hard to deny the car’s sensual sophistication
“Man, that’s horny!” I couldn’t help myself. Fiftysix years old and supposedly blessed with a vocabulary beyond the merely puerile, on first sight of Jaguar’s sexy new coupe, I am reduced to a teenager, just barely able to resist grabbing my crotch Jersey Shore-style to proclaim the sexy white apparition waiting in my driveway as “bitchin’.”
For Jag’s new coupe version of its F-Type is most certainly sexy. And not in that reserved, Annette-Bening-in-a-classystrapless-gown handsomeness that is so typical of Jaguar’s current sports cars. Nope, the slinky Coupe idling in my driveway is a full-wattage Megan Fox flaunting everything she’s got in a small bikini.
When it comes to the F-Type’s appeal, you know you want it, and it scares you knowing the price you know you’d be willing to pay for it.
Thankfully, the new Coupe is not a half-bad car.
The R version, all 550 horsepower of supercharged muscle and Porsche-like suspension sophistication, may be getting all the headlines, but even my V-6-powered S has all manner of sports car bona fides worth trumpeting.
For one, though its 3.0-litre six cylinder is no doubt the lesser of the two engines, it too has a siren song. As I detailed from the launch of the F-Type convertible, this is the sweetest sounding V-6 ever, its twin exhausts sounding more angry superbike than milquetoasty grand tourer. The V-6 S wails like a banshee when the revs are rising, spits in protest when you let off the gas and even gives a little blip of the throttle as warning of its purpose when it starts.
We are conditioned to believe that eight cylinders is always more mellifluous than six; Jag’s V-6 S is going to do a lot to confound that preconception. I’m already convinced.
It doesn’t hurt that its bark is accompanied by a 380-hp bite, the supercharged six revving hard and fast enough in the first two gears to rip to 100 km/h in just 4.9 seconds (just 0.7 seconds in arrears of that fearsome R version). It’s also more than enough to challenge the sticky rear Pirelli PZeros, allowing you to steer with the throttle as well as the wheel. Indeed, the V-6 S’s only powertrain shortcoming is the lack of a manual transmission. Jaguar needs to seriously rethink its mandate on automatic transmission only, no matter how slick the ZF eight-speed is.
Eventually, one does need to talk of practicality and here, too, the F-Type shines. The trunk, for instance, is decently sized and easily loaded. The seats, though firm and well-bolstered, are plenty comfy for long trips. But the one interior feature that stands out for me is the rear-view camera, the best in the business, with a clear view of an extremely wide focus.
The ride, meanwhile, despite all that steering precision and the optional, low-profile sport radials — 255/35ZR20s in front and 295/30ZR20s in the rear — is more than compliant. In other words, this is a siren that doesn’t punish for all her sensuality.
And that, I suspect, will be the main attraction.
Jaguar has always had the allure of sophistication, but in the FType, especially this latest coupe version, it throws in a soupçon of the sultry and seductive into the equation.
It is almost as if, should she be so lucky, the aforementioned Ms. Fox gains some of the elegance that is Mrs. Warren Beatty’s stock-in-trade.