Auto blog

Final Jaguar F-Type produced at Castle Bromwich

Last October, Jaguar told us that the F-Type ZP Edition would be the capstone for the F-Type line, the two-seat coupe and convertible retired at the end of the model year. That turned out to be maybe kind-of a little true; standard versions of the car will continue on sale until early 2025 as Jaguar sells out the car's production. The real last stand for the F-Type is the car above, the final unit down the line at Jaguar's Castle Bromwich facility on May 22, 2024, with its siblings the XE sedan and XF Sportbrake. Colored Giola Green outside with a Tan Windsor leather interior under a black roof, the F-Type will use its 5.0-liter V8 to drive to the Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust collection on the same day that its inspiration, the Jaguar E-Type, ended production in 1974 with a British Racing Green Series III Roadster. Speaking of which, from 1961 to 1974, Jaguar says it built 75,528 E-Types across three Series'. From 2013 to 2024, the automaker built 87,731 F-Types.   Now that the dealer inventory's stocked, what comes next is the end of the long slog to electrification. We won't know what that looks like until the first product gets revealed sometime next year. It's been three years since Jaguar outlined its electric reinvention, promising a two-door sports car and two SUVs that would contend with Bentley and Rolls-Royce. Since then, the electric coupe is said to have given way to a four-seat GT that we presume has four doors, Autocar saying this one could be considered a reborn XJ, although larger and much more luxurious than the last. Sitting on the new long-wheelbase JEA platform, the outlet predicts each will come with baseline specs of at least least 450 horsepower, all-wheel drive and all-wheel steering, six-figure prices. and super-fast charging times. Designs will be minimalist, heavy on touchscreens and sustainable materials, which are pages pulled from the Range Rover playbook. And we're told the Leaper, Jaguar's leaping cat emblem around since World War II, will be put to bed. Instead, identification will be by Jaguar wordtype outside and in — another Range Rover tic. Even stranger: Autocar says none of the three will fit a rear window. Like the Polestar 3, the Jaguars will use "a digital 'mirror' at the base of the windscreen." If this is true, a mirror on the instrument panel at the bottom of the windshield would be proper old-school Jaguar. The GT is meant to debut first, next year, one SUV per year for the two years afterward.

2018 Jaguar XF Sportbrake Quick Spin Review | Special XF no more

The 2018 Jaguar XF Sportbrake is a wagon, and as such, one must praise its existence. We need more of them. It looks sensational in all its long-roofed glory, especially in Firenze Red and the gloss black exterior trim package — yowza. Plus, its cargo area is deep, wide and generally voluminous. It would be nice if Jaguar included a roll-up net partition for dogs or to prevent high-mounted cargo from flying forward (as Audi does in the Allroad), but nevertheless, the XF Sportbrake should be more functional than many crossover SUVs. It should certainly be more enjoyable to drive, as the XF delivers with Jag's usual steering excellence and body control. While other midsize luxury sedans have drifted away from the sporting realm (cough, BMW 5 Series), the XF maintains its engagement with the driver. As we discovered when driven back-to-back with the Volvo V90, it's one of the sportiest of sport wagons. It's definitely the sportiest of Sportbrakes. However, it's the "XF" bit that disappoints. The original XF was really something when it debuted, featuring seductively sleek styling in a segment of serious German sedans. The distinctive cabin put on a show with rotating air vents and a rotary shifter that rose into your hand upon pressing the start button. The fact that the XF was different inside and outside from its fellow Jaguars also differed from the Russian nesting doll design approach of its competitors. The original wasn't without flaws, but it was special. This 2018 XF just isn't. The cabin is the biggest problem, as it looks identical to those of the cheaper XE and F-Pace SUV, and is pretty unremarkable and, well, dull to behold. Even the "show" elements that have survived seem vestigial now, as only the outer air vents rotate and the shifter no longer rises into your hand since the starter has migrated elsewhere. More concerning, though, is that the materials are just not up to the segment standards, and certainly not in keeping with a test car that has a sticker of $84,815. For instance, the old XF could be fitted with soft leather covering the doors and the broad, downward sloping dash. The new one has coarsely grained pleather. Then there's the matter of functionality. The rotary shifter in the original XF was certainly part of the "show" but it also freed up significant space on the center console for three cupholders/bins. The new one resides in an expanse of wood trim the size of a shift boot, leaving no room for that third cupholder/bin.

We drove to the Grand Tour Lapland taping in a British beater

In October, it was revealed that the Great British Motoring Show That Is Not Top Gear was going to be filming an episode somewhere in Finland. I happen to be Finnish, which meant I immediately applied for audience tickets, and then waited for the phone to ring. It never did, but a friend of mine got two tickets of his own. By that time it was announced that the filming was going to take place "somewhere in Lapland", and more precisely hundreds of kilometers north from the Arctic Circle. Excellent! We knew just how to get there. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Last summer, we spent GBP1000 ($1230 as of the publishing date) on a running and driving, British Racing Green Daimler Six on eBay and drove it home to Finland the long way, via Scotland. (In America, this car is known as the Jaguar XJ Vanden Plas.) It was still a little bit road legal in early November, as we had attempted to get it through Finnish import inspection. It failed on the grounds of the rocker panel welds being a bit crusty, but the following one-month grace and repair period meant we could still drive it on temporary sticker plates. So, after buying a set of Nokian winter tires the previous week, we set off from Helsinki the day before the filming. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. There is nothing quite like driving the entire length of Finland in a right-hand-drive four-liter rebadged Jaguar in one day – still on British plates, albeit taped over. We clocked up over 1100km in the comfort of the leather interior, whisked away by the four-liter six's oomphy torque and ambient thrum; every now and then stopping for fuel, swapping drivers and wiping the headlights clean from accumulating highway muck. As we passed Rovaniemi and the Santa's Village, roads gradually got so slippery the Nokians really proved their worth. Reindeer flocked on the road, along with foxes and the single white rabbit (he did not have a pocket watch, as far as we could tell). It was not the lack of sleep doing us in, even if the hotel bed was sorely needed after finally reaching the village of Saariselka in deepest Lapland. After a celebratory beer while watching Finnish karaoke, of course. But the show! The next day we spotted the Fisker, the Boxster, and the Saab 900 driving back from taping the show's localized intro.