Jaguar F-type P450 RWD
The F is vying for a spot among the best Jaguars Meaden's driven
NO POINT BEING COY. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the F-type. The new-car buzz hasn’t faded. The feeling of specialness as I step towards it remains strong, while the smooth, muscular performance and terrific interior makes every journey a pleasure. The regular £100 fill-ups aren’t so much fun (I’ve yet to breach 24mpg), but are still preferable to eating myself to death at Starbucks while waiting an hour for an EV to charge. Yes, this 5-litre supercharged V8 dinosaur really is everything I hoped it would be and more.
Pleasingly it seems to elicit the same response from friends and acquaintances who spend any time with it. There’s a lot of love out there for the Jag, which is good to know, even if it also somewhat frustratingly suggests there’s always been a bigger market for the F-type than it has managed to find.
Perhaps the pure two-seater configuration is a limiting factor. Personally I don’t find the lack of a rear bench too problematic. It’s only an issue when you’re two-up and need somewhere to stash your coat and/ or laptop bag, but you soon learn to put flotsam and jetsam in the boot, which is a useful 500 litres, unlike the Convertible’s comical letterbox-sized load area.
One pleasant surprise has been the P450’s poise on cold, wet roads. I ran an XKR-R back in 2012/13 and it was a right old handful, but the RWD F finds much more traction than its forebear. Not only is the stability control system quicker witted and more measured in its interventions, but if you do decide to go bareback and switch off the electronics, this F-type has far more benign breakaway characteristics (thanks in part to the limited-slip differential) and is readily balanced on the throttle.
The upshot is that where hustling the XKR was a bit like catching a wet bar of soap, the F feels far more polished and gives you much more confidence as a result. Factor in continuous detail development that has seen this late-model car mature into less of a hooligan than the early V8 F-types and you can now enjoy the fact it’s rear-wheel drive rather than feel wary of it. Fun without the fear, if you like.
As you’d expect there’s a degree of configurability to the powertrain and chassis, but the settings are somewhat binary and buried a layer into the HMI. Toggling between Normal and Dynamic using the switch on the transmission tunnel then gives you whatever combinations you’ve preset in the submenus. On those rare occasions when I find fresh tarmac the F really does feel fab with the suspension set to Dynamic, but a Ferrari-style ‘bumpy road’ button would let me toggle between optimum chassis settings independently from my other Dynamic mode selections. Truth be told, there’s room to go a little softer for a truly plush ride, adding a Comfort damper mode below the current Normal. Nevertheless, the P450 still achieves a satisfying compromise that suits its character well.
It’s long been a standing joke that however hard Jaguar tries to reinvent itself as a brand, its demographic remains firmly rooted in the, er, ‘more mature’ age range. Well, I suppose the joke’s on me now that I’m 50. While this alone could explain why I'm loving life with the F-type, the fact that the P450 RWD is fast proving itself to be the most capable and satisfying series production Jag I’ve ever driven is the more palatable and, hopefully, plausible reason.
Date acquired October 2021 Total mileage 2378 Mileage this month 1198 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 23.7