You have to go pretty far back in time to find a prettier two-door sport coupe than the Jaguar F-Type. That would be 1971, the

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final year of two-seat E-Type Coupe production. The redesigned Series 3 E-Type Coupe that came later was nowhere near as attractive due to its 2+2 layout.

On that note I love that Jaguar made the new F-Type a two-seater, whether in hardtop or roadster guise. As experienced with the outgoing XK, the rear seats are so impractical, even for kids, they remain empty anyway, so why add more weight and take up space? Besides, everyone in the collectible world knows that a two-seater is worth more in the long run.

I

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also like that it’s not trying to be a reincarnated E-Type. Unlike the just-mentioned XK, which really tried to conjure the spirit of E with the oval grille and rounded sheetmetal of the first generation ’96–’06 car, the F-Type takes a different path. Instead, the grille is ovoid, not even remotely resembling the E, while its complex combination HID headlamps with unique J-blade signature LED running lights, aggressively penned air ducts, rakishly angled profile, unusually slender LED taillights, and aerodynamically superior Kammback rear end design totally deviate from the storied E-Type. Don’t get me wrong, as one glance at its gracefully flowing bodywork will have memories of the once dominant road and track legend racing back into the mind’s eye,

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but it’s the spirit of the F that evokes such thoughts, not the car itself.

It’s an all-new Type from a totally reinvigorated Jaguar, a brand set free since being caged by Ford Premium Auto Group ownership. Under the PAG umbrella it was never allowed to best Aston Martin at their own sports car game due to the ultra-premium British marque sitting above Jaguar in the brand pecking order. Indian automaker Tata purchased Jaguar Cars from Ford, along with Land Rover, back in 2008, and since then both brands have enjoyed deep pockets of funding and no brand politics holding them back from regaining ground lost in the premium

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league. Jaguar wasted no time, introducing supercharged V8 powertrains in excess of 500 horsepower, immediately dwarfing the 420 horsepower V8 sold by A-M, while more recently adding a supercharged 3.0-litre V6 to the lineup.

That’s what powers the entry-level F-Type and specially tuned F-Type S I most recently drove. As you might expect from a 380 horsepower aluminum-bodied sports car that weighs as little as the 1,594-kilo (3,514-lb) F-Type S, acceleration is exhilarating. It’s not just the rate at which blindingly quick speed can be attained that makes the pulse race, but more so the machinations that emanate from ahead of the firewall, and better yet, the rasping exhaust note that follows the car everywhere it goes. It’s totally intoxicating, causing downshifts that aren’t really

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needed just to hear the obnoxious blat from the back end. Be sure that it’s completely refined in all the right ways too, Jaguar’s engineers having integrated counter-rotating balancers to smooth out any inherent roughness, but all the same the F-Type S is the well-educated private school kid that’s always getting into trouble. Fortunately you can cover up its bad behaviour by flicking a console-mounted switch to electronically close the bypass valves of the active centre-mounted twin exhaust pipes, cutting off a bit of flow so that it’s less disruptive to the neighbourhood when coming home late at night; striking the ideal balance between naughty and nice. Yes all in all the F-Type S is just about perfect, or at least as perfect as a sports car can be without a manual transmission.

As

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wrong as that scenario initially sounds, I could get used to the steering wheel-mounted paddles. They’re an unusual Ignis orange in the S, as is the ignition system’s start button and driving mode selector’s toggle switch. The paddles connect through to a Jaguar-massaged eight-speed Quickshift automatic that feels a lot more responsive than most other brand’s I’ve tested using the ZF-sourced gearbox, the end result from the V6’s 127 horsepower per litre and 339 lb-ft of torque being a 4.9-second sprint from standstill to 100km/h. That’s 0.4 seconds quicker than the 340 horsepower base model and 0.6 seconds slower than the 550 horsepower supercharged 5.0-litre V8 in the F-Type R. It’s a wonderful balance of power that would suit me just fine.

Jaguar keeps the mid-pack S at bay with a limited-slip differential and upgraded sport

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suspension, the latter capable of predicting the car’s pitch and dive from throttle and brake inputs, and then proactively adjusting the continuously variably adaptive dampers to preemptively control body movement, resulting in incredibly flat cornering no matter the speed. No, really. High-speed handling is surreal. Its 14.6:1 steering ratio is so reactive that the F-Type S instantly responds to driver input, while the car plants itself so perfectly mid-curve that it’s almost impossible to shake out of place. Even better there’s a switch for completely turning off the traction control, at which point it gets magnificently tail happy, but in the most sublimely predictable of ways. It doesn’t snap from its line without appropriate notice, but rather lets go bit by bit, as if it’s teasing you to push a little harder. Do so and it becomes a drifter’s dream, not that I scrubbed off too much tread from its

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Pirellis – just saying. My driving style is to burn as little rubber as possible in a quest for maximum cornering speed, which is really what the F-Type S is more about. No doubt its 245/40R19 front and 275/35R19 rear P-Zeros on the model’s stock 19-inch Propeller alloys aid in this mission, not to mention allow the car’s impressive 275-km/h top speed. By the way, that’s 15 km/h faster than the base F-Type and 25 km/h slower than the F-Type R, if such specs matter to you.

Features like Jaguar’s quick-reacting Intelligent Stop/Start system matter more in today’s restrictive world, even though it cuts off the euphonious soundtrack when the engine would otherwise be blissfully gurgling away. Alas, the price we pay for reducing emissions and cutting fuel costs, not that F-Type S buyers are likely concerned all that much with the price of premium unleaded. To satisfy the curious,

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however, the S gets a new five-cycle EnerGuide rating of 12.2 L/100km city, 8.7 highway and 10.6 combined, which isn’t quite as good as the 10.3 combined from the base car, but more efficient than the 12.8 F-Type R rating. Then again, all are impressive when considering their respective performance capability.

I must admit to being less attentive about eco-responsible driving in this car than most others. It brings the devil out in a person. The speed, the sound, the G-forces attainable even around common cloverleaves, and then the otherworldly braking performance, it’s all downright addictive. The S gets a set of high-performance brakes for scrubbing that speed off quickly, the front rotors increased

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by 26 mm to 380 and the rears measuring the same 325 mm as the base car, while the calipers are painted a menacing black instead of silver. My tester boasted the Super Performance braking system, however, which increases the rear rotors to 376 mm and distinguishes the upgrade with fashionably red calipers that just happened to match my tester’s Salsa Red bodywork ideally, but more importantly reined the car in from blurring speeds with a level of controlled immediacy that imparted total confidence. Jaguar will be happy to improve your F-Type S’ braking further while reducing unsprung rotational mass by getting you to part with $14,000 for its Carbon Ceramic Brake Pack that also includes a set of very unique 20-inch gloss black and diamond turned forged Storm alloys.

You can get optional rims without spending $14k, incidentally, a total of nine available

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ranging from a set of 19-inch silver Centrifuge wheels for $550 up to 20-inch Blade and Rotor alloys priced at $3,750. Personal favourites include the least expensive Centrifuge rims and the Tornados in black, the latter especially nice when mounted on a Polaris White car. This white, my tester’s red and Ebony black are the F-Type S’ base colours, whereas the car can also be had in seven $600 metallic hues (the purplish Black Amethyst and burnt orange Firesand metallics being two of my favourites) and two $1,600 specialty colours, British Racing Green metallic and Italian Racing Red metallic (I’m not sure how the Scuderia Ferrari Tifosi feel about that last hue, but Jaguar likely doesn’t care).

Back

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to the Super Performance braking system that came with my test car, you can only upgrade to these if you opt for the $3,950 Performance Pack, which also includes the aforementioned Configurable Dynamic Mode infotainment upgrade and active sport exhaust, plus a flat-bottomed sport steering wheel, performance seats in premium leather, stainless pedals, unique Jet Leather headliner trim and black aluminum trim finisher on the console, albeit keep in mind this last “upgrade” removes one of stylish bright green and red “S” badges from the console, as well as the grippy suede-like fabric inserts from the regular S sport seats.

A shortlist of F-Type S options include the Premium Pack featuring heatable 14-way powered front seats with memory, a heated steering wheel, a powered steering column, auto-dimming power-folding side mirrors, dual-zone climate control, and a garage door opener; the Vision Pack that adds adaptive headlamps, auto-dimming

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high-beams, front and rear parking sonar, a reverse camera, a blind-spot monitoring with closing vehicle sensing and cross-traffic alert (requires Premium Pack); a panoramic glass sunroof that visually melds right into the rear glass for an uninterrupted look, and a few Jaguar Style Packs including the Design Pack, which adds body-coloured exterior enhancements; the Black Pack featuring a gloss black finish on key body trims; a Black Pack for the interior; and finally the Extended Leather Pack that colours key cabin surfaces with leather while adding more interior colour options, or alternatively the Upper Leather Pack, Red Leather Interior Pack, and Suedecloth Interior Pack.

But hold on a second, I’ve been getting way ahead of myself. As you may have noticed, the regular S gets a number of extra improvements that separate it from its

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lesser sibling, and I’m not just talking about those S badges (the two remaining are set into the grille and onto the rear bumper). Various exterior trim bits are done out in sporty gloss black while more chrome is added, plus the heated side mirrors with integrated LEDs are now power folding with puddle lamps. Getting inside is made easier thanks to proximity-sensing access that only needs the touch of a button to automatically deploy the F-Type’s standard concept car-like flush-fitting door handles, just another “wow” factor that few rivals can match, and once inside the convenience continues with the orange/gold-coloured ignition button I commented on earlier. The other previously mentioned orange items and most everything else gets lit up at night via configurable ambient lighting with five colour choices, Phosphor Blue, Pale Blue, White, Coral or Red.

All

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of these upgrades enhance a cockpit that is already one of the most alluring in its class. My tester featured stitched leather over most surfaces, the majority of which was padded underneath. Only the very bottom of each door was hard plastic, par for the course in the F-Type’s segment. The only expected Jaguar accouterment missing are planks of hardwood, this model instead decked out in piano black glossed surfacing where woods or aluminum might otherwise go, specifically around the entertainment system, surrounding the gear lever plus the power seat and lock button panel. I’m not a big fan of piano black lacquer, mostly because it’s a dust magnet and scratches easily, but I must agree that it looks good when new and clean. I’ll take mine with available satin-finish carbon-fibre nevertheless.

The infotainment system is efficiently designed for ease of use and features a quartet of buttons at each side of the eight-inch touchscreen for quick access, the left

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top for home or menu, the next one down for the climate control system, the third for parking sonar, the last one to power the entire system on or off, while the right side incorporates mode, phone, audio video, and navigation buttons. The clarity of the high-resolution screen is superb and graphics excellent, while the system is packed full of functionality that should even keep techno-geeks contently occupied. As part of the optional Performance Pack it gets the Configurable Dynamics with Dynamic-i display upgrade that allows you to define exactly which driving parameters are modified when using Dynamic Mode. It will also display a G-force metre, lap times, throttle and brake input info, plus more.

My test car’s standard 10-speaker 380-watt Meridian sound system delivered all the

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crisp, clear audio quality most music fans will ever want or need, although serious audiophiles will want to upgrade to the 14-speaker 770-watt Meridian surround sound system featuring Trifield three-channel sound processing technology.

Click the dual-zone automatic climate control on and the centre vent rises up out of the dash, giving the simple act of ventilating the cabin a real sense of occasion. The rest of the centre stack is more straightforward in function, but nicely packaged just the same. Three large rubber-rimmed climate dials integrate their individual functions on digital displays housed within, with fan speed in the middle and individual temperature settings at each side, the latter two merely needing an extra push to double as seat heating controllers, not a new idea or overall design yet

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a highly efficient one. Just below, a row of rubberized aluminum buttons actuate auto mode, air conditioning, recirculation, maximum defog, the electric front window de-icer, rear defog, and hazard lights. They function like the toggles from Jaguars of old, but with a new modern twist.

Likewise the parking brake is electronic and wrapped in aluminum, only needing a tug from the index finger to apply. A quartet of small buttons sits beside, one for turning off the traction control, another for enabling the aforementioned amplified exhaust system, one for switching Eco mode on or off, which enables the idle stop/start system in order to save on fuel and reduce emissions, and the last to raise or lower the rear wing. It will deploy automatically at 115 km/h and reduces lift by a significant (264 pounds), before retracting

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when speed falls below 80 km/h so as not to detract from the F-Type S’ beautiful lines when cruising through town.

Under that graceful liftback is 324 litres (11.4 cubic feet) of available cargo space, which is pretty good as far as two-seat sports cars go. It’s nicely finished with high-grade carpeting and Jaguar includes a hard cover to hide valuables.

I’m going to guess that a certain thought has sprung up in your mind as you’ve been reading this review: how much does all this cost? I mean, it’s a gorgeous high-tech aluminum-bodied sports car with brilliant performance and a level of luxury few rivals can match, not to mention Jaguar’s rich, exclusive cachet, it must be worth more than a BMW M4 or Porsche 911, right? Price is the F-Type’s final trump card, the base model slotting in at just $72,900 plus $1,350 for freight and

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pre-delivery prep, which savvy enthusiasts will know is $2,100 less than an M4. The 911? Even the most basic Carrera is $96,200, Porsche’s Cayman S even costing more, while the similarly powered Cayman GTS would add $12,900 to your budget. Of course, this review is about the $84,900 F-Type S Coupe, not the base model, yet still the more powerful, more luxurious, and certainly more exotic looking Jaguar will save you more than $10k over the 911, not to mention almost a thousand less than the Cayman GTS. Don’t misunderstand me here, as I love Porsches in all shapes and sizes and don’t consider them overpriced, but it’s pretty easy to see the F-Type delivers the stronger value proposition here, and believe me that it leaves nothing on the table when it comes to style, performance, luxury or prestige.

Few sports cars are as beautiful to set eyes upon or as blissful to drive as the new Jaguar F-Type S Coupe, no matter the price.
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