JAGUAR F-PACE: Families now have a new face to choose from

If you didn’t know the SUV spectrum is probably the largest sales volume driver in the world when it comes to new vehicle sales. The midsize and small cars which fall in the segment of Toyota Camry’s, Honda Civics all draw a lot of attention but those two combined don’t make up for the Total of SUV/CrossOver sales. What has changed was the old minivan, movement in the past all you would have as options when your family got over 4, was to go down to your local chrysler dealership and pick up a Town and Country. That all changed when they released the 1982 AMC Eagle, this vehicle represented a change to the low center of gravity of a car but kept the handling prowess and performance with a higher ride height, and space of an SUV. So in essence the AMC transformed the station wagon meshed it with an SUV, and kept the sedan like handling convenience/space. That was awesome, but that was back in the late 70’s, Early 80’s so AMC didn’t light the fire like they could’ve (A case of before there time).  

See gasoline was cheap back then, the AMC wasn’t really a design marvel and SUV’s, Minivans, Wagons were the defacto target of consumers in those days with the quote on quote nuclear family. As time slowly shifted from the love of wagons, to SUV’s, back to Minivans (more necessity) here came a vehicle that didn’t get popular because there was another rebel that helped families do cross country trips in more style than your Town and Country example the Volvo Station Wagon.



In 2008 there was a shift the CUV’s got more style they started to have more appeal throughout automotive organizations and soon garnered praised around a gated community near you.  So when all this fun and sensation was happening to the tune of 1 million plus units a year poor Jaguar was going through some financial strain. Ford was focused on Ford and well Jaguar sales dwindled. The saviour came in 2009 not a proclamation of great sales success but of better progress the Jaguar XF came and changed the landscape for luxury car makers around the world. Upon that release there was also a dissolution of the rights of ownership fo most of Jaguar to TATA group. That renowned focus as Jaguar was now the premier brand for TATA outputted a couple of vehicles that may have been in a clay block during the Ford partnership. The Jaguar XJ and the F Type, praise the heavens for those vehicles but they were still missing 1 millon plus sales in this market segment. Fast forward into today and sales support from the two halo models we now have a new CUV to market that Jaguar has introduced called the F-Pace.

Some say well I always thought of Jaguar and Land Rover as sister companies, they are technically share alot of the same components but Jaguar it looks like can forge its in mold. Trying to compete with the likes of BMW, Benz, and Audi means one name, one brand, under one body all for one, yea yea three musketeer rule.

What is the F-PACE a rebadged station wagon or rebadged SUV, no the vehicle is from the ground up a new CUV brought to the market place for those who needed a different kind of space and more clearance from the standard Jaguar offering of Sedans.  Jaguar has highlighted its cat like reflexes have not been compromised by the new found weight in the CUV.  It benefits from the implementation of the new F Type chassis which includes the likes of

• Torque Vectoring
• Adaptive Dynamics
• Configurable Dynamics

Keeping with the hold times and I am glad they did its accented with a double wishbone suspension and the new Integral link this again helps the F-Pace keep pace with its competitors it size is a tweener in between an Q5 and BMW X5.

This car again benefits from having the all aluminum structure found in the Jaguar line up. It’s streamlined design which I will say is the best of the pack currently also has alot of back seat room, with a space in the boot to fit about 650 Liters. So is this show all road and know back road, well of course not they still have relationship with Land Rover and utilized an Adaptive Surface Response (ASR) : Terrain Response Technology which is a brain scanning the road for different conditions making the challenging less challenging as you drive through tumultuous conditions. This coupled with tehhe All Surface Progress Control and Low Friction Launch increase grip and allow for a progressive throttle map when your foot is saddled with 100 lb ankle weights to the accelerator.

When we highlight were jaguar missed the boat in its XF entry it was definitely in the technology spectrum. The infotainment system has now increased its foot print boasting a 10.3 touch screen, not enough for your eyes there is also a 12.3 in cluster in front of your steering wheel that will give you some of the graphics available on the main monitor in 2d and 3d graph scales. This is all powered through a quad core processor, a 60gb SSD drive which should improve the car’s functionality drastically. A couple cool value adds to this system:

• Commute mode: learns your driving pattern and finds routes best suited to get to these destinations
• GPS gone, sensors still recognize where you are on a trip
• Ethernet - driving wifi
• Get an accident can’t call system does it automatically

So Jaguar your gonna HERE ME ROARRRR, eye of the tiger what’s under the bonnet :

I can hear all the Jag Fans such as myself screaming 5.0 Liter yes, but no yes. You know the F-Type has one of the best crackle pop V-6’s on the market. Guess where that engine is going and a host of others for those who don’t need all of that kind of performance:

2.0 4 cylinder Diesel/Petrol  

ZF 8 Speed/6 Speed

180 hp/ 240 hp

0-60 7.3/7.0

3.0 6 cylinder SuperCharged

ZF 8 Speed

340 hp/ 380 hp  

0-60: 5.4 / 5.1

So the V8 is missed but I have a feeling the SVR will work some magic with the Supercharged V6 model or finally move to turbo’s. In all this car is the perfect percentage taker. Yes I think this will be Jaguars best selling model, and when comes to market will take a large bite out of the 1.4 million unit of yearly SUV/CUV sales . Thank you Jaguar