JAGUAR TAKES LEAP INTO PORSCHE PERFORMANCE
2018 F-Type SVR roars with supercharged prowess
What is it about Jaguars? Why does the Coventry automaker enjoy a popularity far grander than its station among annual sales charts? Oh, its sales charts have recently improved, but for the past 20 years Canadians had a fondness for the English motor car that even an aging model line and legendary unreliability couldn’t diminish.
Indeed, every test drive in a new Jaguar is to welcome an adoring audience. I’m used to that. What I am not used to is the unadulterated fawning that greeted my recent test drive of Jaguar’s new F-Type SVR. Not since the original R8 have I seen a sports car receive such a universal adulation from the consuming public.
There’s my anal-retentive, live-by-the-rules neighbour who railed against the turbocharged Audi I tested a few weeks ago because I gave its 3.0-litre V-6 a serious goose of the gas — and an unmuffled one at that — every time its started up in the morning. Obnoxious is the word I think he used, implying that the S4 was not far removed from the Civics with tomato-can exhausts that prowl our neighbourhood.
But the F-Type SVR I drove last week thrums harder and longer — much harder and longer — every time you hit the starter button. But from my neighbour, nary a peep, just longing glances out his front window as I boomed by, my subconscious need to rebel ensuring that the little button which opens the flapper valve in the exhaust system was always deployed as I did.
The 70-something widowed owner of my boxing club who openly mocked the automotive compulsion of her now sainted husband? Who wouldn’t know an Audi from a Honda and, more importantly, doesn’t care? Well, every time I park a Jag at the front door, some animal instinct deep in the recesses of her striatum — that part of the brain tasked with our lustful instincts, sexual or automotive — prompts her to ask “what kind of car is that?”
I could go on. There was the minimum-wage road construction flag waver who completely ignored the Ferrari ahead of me to give the rumbling Jag two thumbs up; our video editor who usually doesn’t give a rat’s ass for any car less than 30 years old and in an advanced state of decay; and the seeming multitudes who, not knowing what the Jag was, commented on its French Racing Blue (in official Jaguar parlance, Ultra Blue) paint job. But the point is made: Jaguar, and this Jaguar in particular, has an outsized place in the pantheon of fine automobiles.
It’s not surprising that this particular Jag is so popular. After all, it is an F-Type, the comely little sports car that fairly rescued the once avant-garde automaker from aging designs and sensible sedans. It was also, as noted above, liveried in a universally loved hue and, if you somehow managed to miss the flashy paint, there was no ignoring the NASCAR-went-to-finishing-school blat trumpeting out its quad pipes. In your face, both visually and aurally, an F-Type SVR is not for the wilting flower.
Nor for the faint of heart. That (a little juvenile) exhaust note announces a further retuning of Jaguar’s supercharged 5.0-litre V-8 to 575 horsepower (25 up from the already massaged R model). Mated to Jag’s sophisticated all-wheel-drive system, a 25-kilogram weight reduction (the result of a Inconel titanium exhaust system and lighter buckets seats) and an eightspeed automatic (Coventry has yet to buy into the double clutch manumatic craze), that’s good enough to sprint to 100 kilometres an hour in about 3.7 seconds. Hold onto your nerve for long enough and it’ll top out at more than 320 km/h. Those, for quick reference, are Porsche 911 Turbo numbers.
From the driver’s seat, one can feel every one of those ponies. Or, more accurately, every one of the big rumbling V-8’s 516 poundfeet of torque. And, because it’s supercharged rather than turbocharged, there’s no turbo lag waiting for exhaust-driven fans to gather momentum. Throttle response is immediate, aggressive and, shall we say, engaging. Jaguar bills the SVR as grand touring; it feels more like a supercar.
Ditto for the F-Type’s suspension. I’ve read in other tomes that the SVR has compliant suspension (at least for a sports car). I can only suggest that you look at the placelines of those stories, because they certainly weren’t testing in Toronto (or, the last time I visited, Vancouver) because the Jag really rocked and rolled over TO’s potholes like a chuckwagon. To be sure, the benefits of the larger rear anti-sway bar are felt every time you turn into a fast corner, with much better initial bite and less understeer, but that’s to the driver’s benefit. So there is definitely a trade-off to those gigantic 20-inch rims and their low-profile Pirellis.
The SVR’s handling is nothing short of superb, but at the expense of Jaguar’s normally cosseting ride. Jaguar claims the SVR can lap the famed Nürburgring in just 7:33, placing it in some pretty exalted company (Pagani’s legendary Zonda F and the 2010 version of the Porsche’s GT3 RS posted identical times). Like the engine, the suspension may be billed grand touring, but it feels more supercar-ish.
As do the brakes, at least the optional ones on my tester. Some Brembo six-pot calipers clamp onto the largest carbon ceramic discs — 398 millimetres — I’ve seen on a car not bragging 12 Italian pistons. These babies stop right now and, short of an endurance race at high-speed Mosport, it’s hard to imagine anything taxing their monumental power. This is the kind of top-of-the-line braking componentry we’re used to seeing on million-dollar Ferraris. Which means, along with their incredible stopping power, comes a little touchiness.
The only downside to this reference of the F-Type SVR as grand tourer is that Jaguar, in gussying up what was originally a mid-tier model in its lineup to its full-zoot, no-expensesspared $142,000 price tag, faces the same problem all automakers do when tarting up a lesser model, namely that while adding equipment can shore up a car’s mechanical bona fides, it’s harder to do with interior appointments. So, while the SVR does have some exquisitely quilted leather seats and the latest InControl Touch Pro infotainment system, the interior doesn’t feel quite as special as the rest of the car. Pleasing to the eye and comfortable, there’s nonetheless nothing in this F-Type’s cabin that says you just spent a hundred and a half on a car that baselines for $68,500. It’s not a deal breaker; the SVR, after all, lays claim to being the fastest Jaguar of all time (save the ill-fated XJ220). So we can cut it some slack, but it does show that luxurious interiors are a ground-up design.
Middling interior appointments aside, the F-Type SVR is quite an accomplishment for Jaguar. It’s an enormously capable car that for the first time gives Coventry an equal to Porsche’s legendary 911 Turbo in both performance and panache. Paint it blue and I promise it won’t go unnoticed or unloved.
This SVR is a pre-production model, so full specs are not yet available. Production cars should go on sale later this year.