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2018 Jaguar F-Pace S is a fun but thirsty travel companion

I love road trips. I've moved across the country twice, spending weeks living out of my car, eating granola bars and sucking down energy drinks like it was finals week all over again. I get a huge kick out of calculating fuel economy, stretching out tanks of gas or diesel until the low-fuel light begins to sear itself into my retinas. I try to take each and every one of our long-term vehicles on some such trip. Not long after our 2017 Jaguar F-Pace S arrives, my wife and I decided to see some family in Asheville, North Carolina, roughly 10 hours and 700 miles from our home in suburban Detroit. Now, I knew from the outset this was going to be a far different experience than our previous long-termer, a 2017 Jaguar XE diesel. I managed to eek out nearly 700 miles per tank, averaging 42 mpg over 2,000 miles with that car. But the 380-horsepower supercharged V6 in the F-Pace is rated at 18 city/23 highway with a combined rating of just 20 mpg. Not good, and — unlike the XE — I didn't think I could do much better without greatly altering my admittedly aggressive driving habits. Still, I wanted to take our blue bomber to the Blue Ridge Parkway, so onward I went. There were a few other things I was worried about over what was sure to be another 2,000-mile trip. The F-Pace's suspension was a bit stiff thanks to the sporty S trim. The 20-inch wheels don't help matters, though things could be worse (some people on staff wanted to get 22s). At least they look good. Still, the seats are comfortable and the radio is top-notch. LCD Soundsystem's latest album had just come out, so I put it on repeat and headed south. The first part of the trip was going to be both the most boring and the most economical. The roads in Michigan and Ohio are flat and straight. It isn't until you hit Kentucky and head into the Appalachian Mountains that things get interesting. Just set the radar cruise control and barrel down Interstate 75 with as much urgency as you dare. I forgot my Valentine One at home. The ride was firm but not as bad as I imagined it might be, at least once we got off of Michigan's pockmarked pavement. The F-Pace tracked straight and true, but I became acutely aware that the steering wheel itself was out of alignment, leaning just slightly to the left. Fuel economy was fine, but I was just meeting the EPA estimate, not beating it like I usually manage to do.

Junkyard Gem: 1995 Jaguar Vanden Plas

Sold in Europe as the Daimler Six, the 1995 Jaguar Vanden Plas had all the luxury bling that mid-1990s high-rollers needed. This one now resides in the imports section of a self-service wrecking yard near Denver, just like any ordinary Jetta or Lanos. The Vanden Plas name started out in Belgium in 1870, eventually ending up as a British Leyland brand via the Austin Motor Company. 2009 was the last year that luxo-Jags were slugged with the Vanden Plas name. Ford owned Jaguar by this time, of course, but the engine in the XJ6 series remained a traditional Jaguar straight-six. This one is a 4.0-liter rated at 245 horsepower. After 1997, the Jaguar sixes were gone from the XJs, replaced by V8s. The MSRP on this car was $62,200, which amounts to about $102,000 in inflation-adjusted 2017 dollars. It costs real money to keep a car like this running correctly, and once maintenance corners start getting cut... well, the end is near. You should feel fear when you see this. This car is battered and many parts have been yanked by junkyard shoppers, but try to imagine it when it had that new Jag smell. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Built in the proud new spirit of Jaguar.

2018 Jaguar F-Pace: Ambient lighting is fun and frustrating

Like so many other automobiles from this decade, our long-term Jaguar F-Pace crossover has customizable interior lighting, a part of the $2,350 Luxury Interior Package. I've previously admitted to the fact that ambient lighting has me split in opinion. On the one hand I know that it's probably going to end up being dated and uncool in the future. On the other, I actually quite enjoy it, possibly because I grew up in the neon-fueled world of early '00s import tuner culture. I also like it from a color-coordination perspective. Our Jaguar's bold blue hue called Caesium can be brought inside with equally bright illumination. It's very satisfying. But that satisfaction of having everything just so is quickly sullied as the center stack and switches are only one color that can't be changed. Admittedly, that's completely normal, but unlike many of those other cars that use neutral white illumination, the Jag's light up in the same blue/teal color that made your Razr phone look cool so many years ago. And so whether you bathe your cabin in blue, red, purple or green light, the ambient lighting will clash with the main switch gear. You can pick a shade of blue for the ambient lighting that roughly matches the switches, but I don't want to compromise my color preference because Jaguar didn't put in LEDs in that would be neutral (or, even better, change to match the ambient settings). I have other complaints about color-matching in the car, too. The instrument panel, which is a flat screen, has a few different display modes, but most of the readouts use a similar (but not quite the same) blue/teal color as the switchgear. So that doesn't match, either. Then, in the sport mode, the instrument screen switches to red. That brings me to my next gripe: all the ambient lighting switches to red when choosing this mode. I get it, red means sporty and Jaguar wants everything about sport mode to feel sporty. But damn it, I paid for custom lighting, let me keep that lighting when I'm also in a sporty mood. I actually sometimes skip the sport mode because I want to be swathed in my favorite hue more than I want slightly more sporty driving dynamics. Oh, and of course the switchgear remains teal/blue even in sport mode. So yes, this is picky. But that's the beauty of evaluating a car like the F-Pace over a longer period of time.