Big cat, ‘the ultimate crossover’
A FEW weeks after the Jaguar F-Pace took the prestigious title of the World Car of the Year award, it was great to get up close and personal with the big cat.
The F-Pace was a high-spec 2.0 D Prestige AWD Auto 180BHP variant, finished in what Jaguar calls ‘ulimate back metallic’ and finished with 19 inch fan alloy wheels.
It was a lovely car, purposeful and packed with good ideas, powerful and comfortable on the road and with great street cred’.
I parked it outside a well-known local restaurant on the Sunday evening of the road test and it was without doubt the best looking car its type on the lot, simply oozing style and quality.
Jaguar’s luxury SUV is great to drive, extremely comfortable, safe and secure, perhaps the ulimate crossover, that is both frugal and fast.
Among the many standard features on the road test model was sat nav, dual climate control, grained leather seats, rear parking sensors and heated front seats.
Additional Factory extras included the fan alloys, brushed aluminium roof rails, electric front seats and a power tailgate, all of which, plus the metallic paint, brought the on-the-road price to a little over €61,400.
Entry levels versions come in significantly less expensive, starting at €44,100.
The F-PACE seats five adult occupants in absolute comfort with generous head and knee room and the luggage compartment volume is a whopping 650-litres.
Infotainment and connectivity technology is industry leading. The premium InControl Touch Pro system is based around a 10.2-inch touchscreen, with a powerful quad-core processor and solid-state drive, and runs on ultra-fast Ethernet. The result is a user interface which is instinctive and extremely quick with sharp and incredibly responsive graphics. Up to eight devices can be connected to the vehicle’s super-fast wifi hotspot at one time.
The navigation system can save you time by learning your commute, offers true door-to-door guidance and can even advise others of your arrival time. Navigation can also be shown full-screen – in 3D – in the 12.3-inch HD virtual instrument cluster.
I found the nav system one of the easiest and intuitive of any of cars I have driven over the past few years.
The Lightweight Aluminium Architecture gave the Jaguar design and engineering teams – now recognised globally as leaders in aluminium technology and design - the ideal starting point for the F-Pace. It was created from the outset as a modular structure, so the wheels can be positioned exactly where they are needed to deliver the proportions, dynamics, and practicality essential for a performance crossover.
The wheelbase and track are not shared with any other Jaguar. At 4,731mm long and with a 2,874mm wheelbase, the all-new F-Pace offers the sleek profile and short front overhang characteristic of Jaguar design together with an exceptionally spacious interior.
The light, stiff body structure comprises 80 per cent aluminium, and is the only aluminium-intensive monocoque in the segment. Additional weight savings come from the composite tailgate and magnesium for parts such as the cross-car beam.
The result is that the rear-wheel drive 180PS diesel manual transmission model weighs as little as 1,665kg and achieves CO2 emissions of just 129g/km.
The body’s high torsional stiffness enables the F-TYPE-derived double wishbone front suspension and sophisticated Integral Link rear suspension to perform even better. Together with Torque Vectoring as standard and an Electric Power Assisted Steering system tuned to give the best possible feel and response, the all-new F-PACE sets the benchmark for ride and handling.
Even the entry-level model benefits from monotube dampers as standard, but for even better ride and handling the electronically-controlled Adaptive Dynamics system measures body and wheel movement 100 and 500 times a second respectively, ensuring optimum damping forces in all conditions.
For the most enthusiastic drivers there’s Configurable Dynamics: first used in the F-TYPE, this feature allows individual settings for the throttle, automatic transmission, steering, and, where fitted, the Adaptive Dynamics system.
The F-Pace’s torque on-demand allwheel drive (AWD) system is Jaguar’s most sophisticated yet, and has the highest torque capacity.
It features the advanced, in-house control system first developed for F-TYPE AWD: Intelligent Driveline Dynamics (IDD). IDD preserves rearwheel drive agility and handling character, but can seamlessly transfer torque to the front wheels to exploit the performance benefits of extra traction, on all surfaces and in all weathers.
The F-Pace has been engineered to satisfy the most stringent safety standards worldwide and provides exceptional levels of occupant and pedestrian protection.
The powertrain range will consist of: 180PS 2.0-litre diesel manual RWD/ AWD and automatic AWD; 240PS 2.0-litre petrol automatic RWD; 300PS 3.0-litre diesel automatic AWD; 340PS and 380PS 3.0-litre petrol automatic AWD.