Slinky Jag has all the right ingredients but the result is less than the sum of its parts
Sports cars are an endangered species. Specialized machines like sports cars are increasingly taking a backseat to cars with backseats as the performance SUV becomes the popular choice in sporty transport. Most people don’t want to compromise on cargo capacity, all-weather capability, or rear seating. They want a car (thing?) that can do it all. And as such new sporty CUVs are popping up at the same rate that traditional sports cars seem to be biting the dust.
And it’s in this environment we find the 2022 Jaguar F-Type. This car should be a slam dunk. It’s a drop-top two-seat sports car with slender lines penned by a design master. It has a supercharged V8 under its hood in contrast to our increasingly turbocharged world, and a leather-wrapped interior with all the powered niceties you could ever want. But it’s not a slam dunk. It isn’t even a basket. This car is a $100,500 air ball. And it begs the question, do we deserve a better sports car? Or are we supposed to be satisfied that such a car still exists in the land of sport SUVs?
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When the Jaguar F-Type roared onto the scene eight years ago in 2014 it was a revelation. Jaguar showed the world that they were done making cars that looked like olden pubs on wheels and were finally looking towards the future of design with a car that stood on its own merit outside the lens of nostalgia. The F-Type dazzled us with its lines, and its shouting V8 which was the first car to popularize “burble tunes” on the overrun. It also appeared on the cover of every magazine with smoke pouring out of the rear wheelwells in lurid slides. And we loved it. In 2014 our Brian Harper wrote “If I could kiss the the man who designed this exquisite coupe, I probably would.”
But it’s been eight years. The Obama years feel so far away and the champagne surrounding the F-Type has gone flat. In the daylight, the morning after, the flaws of this once headlining sports car become hard to ignore. A somewhat controversial exterior facelift was performed in 2020 mostly to change the F-Type’s long, sleek headlights for short squinty ones that are more able to pass pedestrian crash tests. I like the new look but many prefer the old.
The analogue gauges with their distinct windowed needles have been replaced by a LCD screen that lacks the charm and theatre of the old setup. Despite the inclusion of a well-integrated Apple CarPlay system on the central touch screen, everything else is as it was in 2015. The motorized dashboard vents still go up and down with a mechanical whirr and all the interior controls are unchanged. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the F-Type interior has aged well and in the right colours, doesn’t look dated at all.
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Maybe we were just too excited to notice in 2015 but the interior hasn’t gotten any larger. In my convertible tester, a large bulkhead looms over both seats and the console is wide and tall. Making matters more cavelike was my testers colour configuration which included black paint, a black top, and black leather seats. With the top up, you can barely see out the back of the car and with it down, the black leather surfaces are all too eager to form a sun-fired kiln to envelope you with heat. It also rattles and squeaks like an abused rental car over bumps. That said, the seats are very comfortable and with the wheel adjusted so it blocks half of the gauges, the seating position is quite nice.
From here is where a sports car should shine. Sports car buyers knowingly sacrifice a roomy cabin and the latest tech to afford a more pure, involving, and exciting driving experience, but here sadly the F-Type does not deliver. The Jag is powered by a supercharged V8 but you’ll never hear it under any circumstances. This is a huge wasted opportunity. The whine of a Hellcat supercharger is basically Dodge’s sonic logo and after Jag worked so hard to have one of the few supercharged V8s on the market, why not let us hear it? There’s no reason this car couldn’t sound like a Hellcat.
The hits keep coming too. The F-Type P450 makes 444 hp which sounds decent until you realize it takes 5.0L, premium fuel, and a supercharger to make that amount. The far more affordable Ford Mustang makes more power from a V8 of the exact same size with no supercharger and it runs on regular gas, unlike the Jag. Powertrain technology has clearly moved beyond the P450 engine and leaves it underwhelming in output, and fuel economy.
Our test car is rated at a woeful 15.2 L/100 km city and 9.8 on the highway. Add in that it only drinks premium and this is a very expensive car to run with today’s fuel prices. This is also coincidentally the same fuel mileage as the heavier, larger, and more powerful 2022 Ford Mustang.
Compare the Jaguar F-Type specs to four other luxury convertibles
Why is the fuel mileage so bad? Because despite its compact dimensions, the F-Type is very heavy. Why is the F-Type so heavy? An excellent question.
Our test car is one of only two production cars in history to attempt the format of a front engine, two-seat convertible, with all wheel drive. The other car to try this was the Bentley Bacalar. All-wheel drive sports cars have been done successfully before. Porsche sells many AWD 911s and Audi will happily sell you an R8 driving all four wheels. The added traction gives added confidence in inclement weather and is helpful for putting huge amounts of power into the ground. However the P450 makes just 444 hp so it hardly needs a second driven axle to put that power to the ground and a cloth-top two-seater is not exactly the car most people are going to winter drive so what is the AWD for, exactly? Bad weather capability for a car designed for good weather? You can spec your P450 (convertible or coupe) in RWD and doing so will save you a massive $10,200 and 72 kg. The cost savings are enormous and I can’t imagine why someone would pay over $10,000 to add AWD to a convertible.
On the road, I may have felt the AWD at work while hustling through the backroads if the steering told me anything at all. I’ve experienced video games with more steering feel. Stab the gas and you’ll be happily surprised that Jaguar has turned down the infamous “burble tune” of the 2015 V8 models thought it still does pop and bang artificially in sport mode. The V8 sounds good (even with inaudible supercharger) and it’ll do a sprint to 100 km in 4.6 seconds. This is quick, but certainly not rapid for a $100k sports car in 2022.
The Jag is at it’s best when it’s parked. It looks expensive and in the dark, passers by may think you splurged for an Aston Martin. With it’s black paint and optional black badge package, the F-Type’s sharp looks are hard to ignore. But for the Jag, beauty is only skin deep. It ends up being too heavy to be a pure sports car that’s satisfying to drive like a Porsche 718. But despite its generous power and weight, it’s also flawed as a long distance GT car. The trunk is microscopic, the interior squeaks will bother you over long drives and there is precious little stretch-out room inside. At $100k with a thirsty V8 it’s hardly a value option either. This is a car that needs a real rethink and in 2022 it’s simply not good enough that the F-Type merely exists and looks good; it has to perform as well. And as much as I wanted to love that beautiful car in my driveway for a week, I couldn’t.
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