2017 Jaguar F: Is This SUV More Than Just a Pretty Face?

This is a 2017 Jaguar F. Look at it. The XJ is luxurious, obviously sporty, deeply sexy and totally sales-proof. Nobody wants sedans. They can't sell them. Luckily for Jaguar, they built this. The all new F-Pace. I say lucky because small, premium SUVs are smoking hot right now. Jaguar literally has to compete if they want to survive. There's a reason why you want an all-star like Ian Callum heading up your design team. Callum's responsible for both the Aston Martin DB-9, and the 2006 Vantage. Two of the most beautiful sports cars, well, ever.

 The F-Pace is Ian's first stab at an SUV, and it's a knockout. Unlike the majority of chunky, two-box designs out there, this Jaguar is athletic, free from superfluous flourish, with fabulous surface control, and a wonderful dash to axle ratio. I just wish that they would have let someone of Ian's talents loose on the interior. So, next time you're wandering through a mall parking lot, take a look at how same-same the SUVs are. The F-Pace by contrast, is a breath of gorgeous fresh air. Enough of sitting around a parking lot. As my man Jack Kerouac very well might have said, "Let's take this cutie on the road." (car engine revving) So, what makes the F-Pace? Well, structurally speaking, this uses the same platform as the XE and the XF sedans.

Not related to the F-Type, although they do share the F, but this is an all-new, all-aluminum architecture so it's basically an XF, picked up in the air a little bit. Engine-wise, it's that familiar, super-charged three-liter V6. It makes 340 horsepower in the base trim. This is an F-Pace S, so it makes 380 horsepower, torque is 332 pound feet. (engine revving) What's cool about it and what differentiates the F-Pace from most other SUVs is it's rear-wheel drive bias, meaning that right now cruising in a straight line, 90 percent of the torque is being sent to the rear wheels, and only 10 percent goes to the front. Of course, it can go 50-50 in certain situations, but the point is, this feels and drives like a rear wheel drive car, instead of an all-wheel drive car. So in other words, and I've made this analogy before, gigantic Miata versus gigantic WRX, so This is very rear-wheel drive biased, compared to how, say the Porche Macan or Cayenne might feel. Those feel very all-wheel drive. In other words, you get a lot of push in the steering. One of the really neat features: this. I don't know, they probably call it like, the "sports activity bracelet," or something like that. But basically, you're going to go surfing, so you don't want to bring your phone, you don't want to bring your wallet, you don't even want to bring your keys. You want to lock all those in your car, but then of course your car's locked. Well, you can do it now, and then bam, you wear this, and you can get into the car. Pretty cool if you're into like, action sports. As far as the interior goes, it's kind of the weak spot of the F-Pace.

 I mean look, this one has $2200 in leather and this crazy painted, plastic thing here. It looks okay, but to me it's more like a guy with like, neck tattoos that's wearing a suit. Nice suit, but you can still see how rough everything is. That's kind of what it's like in the F-Pace. (engine revving) (upbeat music) Whoever laid this car out, they're used to how you transform a modern car from a boulevardier into a backroader. And what I mean by that is, without moving my arm I can flip the transmission into sport. I can put the car into dynamic mode, and I can click the traction control into the track setting. Jaguar debuted that with the F-Type, and well, they repeated it in another car, so I guess it is now a brand value, and it's great. It works. The other thing is, SUVs don't drive like this; this is just fantastic! Hard to explain. Yes, there are going to be cars that put down better numbers, right? You're going to have stuff like the X5 and X6 M and the Cayenne and all those, which, have a lot more power and are more capable. But they just feel, like big, all-wheel drive beasts, whereas this feels rear-wheel drive, man, all the power is coming from the back of the car and it's drifty and it's fun, and it just feels so much better. [laughs] I'm just kind of flabbergasted by it.

 You shouldn't be having this much fun in an SUV. If there's a dynamic shortcoming to the car, it's the engine. It's old, it's tired. It's heavy. And what I mean by heavy is, this is the same block as the V8. In other words, the five-liter V8 and the three-liter V6 is literally the same hunk of metal. They just drill six holes in this one instead of eight. It was a cost-cutting measure Jaguar did years ago, therefore the V6 is too heavy and the technology is too old. And you know, look, an in-line six, a modern engine, would take some weight off the front, which is always welcome. Although I should mention, this car, the weight distribution is 51 in the front, 49 in the rear. Pretty good. So far the F-Pace has accomplished its goal, right? It's a great-looking, sporty SUV that is fantastic to drive on a backroad. But, if you're going to call yourself an SUV and take advantage of the CAFE regulations you get by calling yourself an SUV, you better have some utility. You better be able to go off-road. (upbeat music) Are you crazy? Have you seen the wheels and tires on this thing? I'm not taking it off road. I'm taking that off road. 

So yes, once again, I'm taking an expensive, European SUV off-road. And I know no one does this. But part of the reason people buy SUVs is that in the back of their mind, they like to know that if they had to, they could. And the F-Pace is much more capable than people think. What people forget is that, yes, it's Jaguar, but it's really Jaguar Land Rover, and while chassis-wise, this thing has nothing to do with the Land Rover, electronically, it does. The F-Pace has Land Rover technology in it. The big important one being adaptive, surface response.

 So this is software developed by Land Rover, and if you have a vehicle without low gears, I.e. a transfer case like this one, you have some fancy electronic aids that allow you to climb up sandy, dirt hills like this, no problem whatsoever. And the other piece of software this has is something called "All-Surface Progress Control," which is basically cruise control for off-road. I'll go ahead and engage it right now. And you can set the speed from between two to 19 miles an hour, and you actually use the cruise control buttons to do so. So, pretty capable, and again, we're not going to go rock-crawling in the F-Pace here, But, you know, we can do some fairly decent off-roading, especially with these tires. These are not those 22-inch rubber band tires, like on the red one. No, these are 55 profile, off-road tires, and you know what? Pretty damn good. (engine revving) And again, for those of you saying, "Yeah, hey man, my 1987 Buick Regal can do it," contact me in the comments. Let's make it happen. Oh, this is really good. This is really good off-road, wow. I mean you could rally this thing. (laughs) You can get going at a pretty decent clip off-roading in this thing. (laughs) It's awesome. It's easy. So, I hope you are as impressed as I am with out capable the F-Pace is off-raod. Look, Jaguar, they didn't have to do this. They could have taken the easy way out, right? They could have taken the XF sedan, lifted it in the air a few inches, wrapped it in an SUV body and called it a day.

But instead, they borrowed from themselves. They baked in a lot of cool, Land Rover technology, and voila: you have a really impressive off-roader. (upbeat music) To wrap this up, this is a part of the market, Jaguar absolutely had to get into. But don't take my word for it, look at the July 2016 sales figures. Add up the F-Type, the XJ, the XF, the XE, combined, they sold 1,246 vehicles. The F-Pace, that same month, a vehicle that nobody has driven sold 1,609 units. This segment is on fire. But here's the thing: they didn't have to do such a good job. They could have just slapped the Jaguar badge on anything and called it a day. But instead, they built a beautiful, capable, fantastic to drive on a backroad, SUV. We're never going to have an answer to the question, "Which is the more important product: the 1961 E-Type - a car that many consider to be the most beautiful car ever made - or the 1960 XJ - a car so strong, it has carried the brand on its back for over four decades?" But what I can tell you conclusively, is that the new F-Pace is the most important Jaguar of the 21st century.

om deddy Tuesday, June 6, 2017 Jaguar