LONDON: Jaguar has announced that its first SUV will enter production in 2016 and eshew Jaguar’s normal badging structure with a radical new name – Jaguar F-Pace.
Prices are expected to open around the £30,000 mark putting the F-Pace up against the Audi Q5 and BMW X3 as well as its stablemates the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque
Jaguar is referring to the new F-Pace model as a “performance crossover” as opposed to an SUV. The name is designed to align it with the F-Type sports car and distance it from those more rugged products offered by sister-company Land Rover.
Jaguar F-Pace: technical specs
Full technical details for the Jaguat F-Pace won’t be released until later this year, but certain specifications have been confirmed. It will be available with a five-seater layout only, and assuming it sticks closely to the concept’s 4,718mm length, will be a few centimetres bigger than its main rivals – the Audi Q5 and BMW X3. For that reason, Jaguar claims it will have class-leading interior space as well as a “beautiful design, precise handling, a supple ride, luxurious interior finishes and cutting-edge technology.”
The F-Pace will be based on the same aluminium-intensive iq[AL] platform as the new XE saloon and built in the same revamped Solihull plant in Birmingham. The similarities between the SUV and saloon will extend to the suspension geometry (the XE uses advanced double wishbones at the front and a multi-link setup at the rear), the interior switchgear and InControl infotainment system and the engine line-up. The four-wheel drive system will be governed by Jag’s All-Surface Progress Control technology to maximise grip in all road conditions.
Jaguar F-Pace: engine range and price
Expect 2.0-litre turbodiesel and 2.0 turbocharged petrol engines – both from the new Ingenium engine family – to be offered in various states of tune, along with a supercharged 3.0-litre V6 at the top of the range. A more-powerful supercharged V8 model could come later in the lifecycle to power an F-Pace R performance model. Prices are likely to start from around £30,000.
Why F-Pace? Jaguar’s SUV naming policy
Jaguar created shockwaves by announcing that the name of its forthcoming SUV would be F-Pace. In a candid interview with Auto Express at the Detroit Motor Show, Jaguar’s design director, Ian Callum, explained his role in the choosing of the F-Pace name, the challenges he has faced in creating Jaguar’s first ever SUV and how the daring crossover was nearly called X-Type.
“Creatively speaking, I had little role in the choice of the F-Pace name, but I was clear on saying it needed to have a reference to sportiness,” he told us. “Both Ralf [Speth – Jaguar Land Rover CEO] and I agreed it needed character. Alphanumeric was not an option and we toyed with many names. We played with the letter X a lot – XQ was one option but we felt Q is too much of an Audi thing, and of course Aston Martin uses Q.
Callum explained around eight names were in the running before being dwindled down to three, with F-Pace being one of them. “I picked F-Pace,” he said. “I like it because I think it’s got a bit of texture and character to it and I think after time people will get used to it.”
2016 Jaguar F-Pace design
The Scot was more than aware of the pressure on his and his team’s shoulders in creating a type of car Jaguar had never built before – and admits it has been a demanding process.
“It has been difficult because it goes against every muscle of your body in some ways,” he says. “Once I realised that a crossover makes good business sense and that for a lot of young people, they don’t know anything else other than crossovers, I said to our team we’ve got to embrace this car.
“It has to be sexy; it has to have voluptuousness to it. If it means compromising some of the packaging then we’ll do it – that’s what Jaguars do and we will push back on this obsession of getting the biggest volume inside, the biggest capacity and the largest tailgate opening. I wasn’t going to buy into that. I am very pleased with the end result. We have done a good job – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”
