Jaguar’s new F-type R coupé is hugely impressive, but can it really compete with the mighty Porsche 911 Turbo S?
The Jaguar F-type R coupé has ambitions of conquering Porsche's 911 Turbo S
The first thing to understand is that the new Jaguar F-type R coupé truly belongs in this kind of company. When the convertible arrived last year, we fretted about its pricing proximity to the Porsche 911 – and its distance from the Porsche Boxster.
Our fondness for Jaguar’s V8-engined roadster is a matter of record, but having it go toe to toe with a Porsche 911 Turbo cabriolet would be folly. For all the ability plumbed into its clever aluminium bedrock, the open-top F-type is as much hedonistic hot rod as it is honest-to-goodness sports car.
The coupé, though, particularly in range-topping R format, is a different prospect. Closing the roof has sewn up the monocoque’s soft spot with the thoroughness of a Roman stonemason sliding the keystone into an arch.
The resulting structure has been made positively triumphal by the addition of yet more power. Its 542bhp is as much as has ever been extracted from Jaguar’s all-aluminium V8 – 54bhp more than the V8 S rag-top and an output previously reserved for the weightier XKR-S and XFR-S.
By transplanting it into the 1650kg F-type and keeping the price below six figures, Jaguar has one of the world’s most formidable sports cars in its sights the Porsche 911 Turbo S. If that weren’t enough, it’s also May and the sat-nav says south Wales – home of the British monsoon. Welcome to big school, Jaguar.
Steve Sutcliffe drives a Jaguar F-type R coupé prototype.
Fortunately for the F-type, the introductory 100-mile M4 handshake offers the Porsche little opportunity to administer a Chinese burn. The weather is dry, the sun is out and the R dispenses feelgood like a Balearic terrace DJ.
This car is exceptionally beautiful. That must be agreed before we go anywhere. The proportions, very slightly fudged in the convertible, are now exquisite. Were this a beauty contest – and it will be for some – the winner could easily have been decided inside the M25.
The F-type coupé’s roofline contributes to the interior prowess, too, forming a haunched set of shoulders aft of the excellent seats.
Then there’s the sound. We’re used to Jaguar teasing some extraordinary notes from the outboard-mounted quad pipes, but this time it has gone to Liberace levels of excess. In Dynamic mode, the bypass valves default to straight-through drama at all speeds, meaning that every inch travelled is accompanied by an ear-splitting eight-pot mewl or off-throttle pop.
It is of such melodramatic, look-at-me quality that you’d most likely shy away from extolling its virtues in the company of others – and then leave it permanently turned on when alone.
As with its appearance, the bombastic soundtrack leaves its rival trailing. The far more expensive 911, on its widest available track with 305-section rear tyres and retractable wing, looks as imposing on the road as it does on a spec sheet.
But the 552bhp twin-turbocharged 3.8-litre flat six stays resolutely buttoned down, transporting you from standing start to beyond the horizon with the expediency of a flash drive.
Refined progress comes naturally to the Porsche. It would permit you to absent-mindedly study the concrete pylons on the Second Severn Crossing at 150mph. Its high-speed stability is remarkable, and the way that it simmers intimately on adaptive dampers and 20-inch wheels is testament to the engineers’ intentions for its use.
However, strike a swollen catseye or the wrong type of crease and the Porsche’s chassis will momentarily bridle. The Turbo’s ride quality is a tightrope act designed to stay bolt upright on varnished autobahns, but a cruddy British motorway is not beyond upsetting the balance.
The F-type, as you might expect from a car tweaked a stone’s throw from the M40, is better equipped to deal with our arterial patchwork. Not for it the over-sprung twang of wheel meeting impediment. This is a Jaguar, after all, and it rides like one.
The resulting lope is an essential element retained from the roadster but, with telltale tremors gone, more obviously honed. A marginal raising of spring rates doesn’t stop the R from riding better in Dynamic mode, though, the extra body control adding directness to its lane changes and steeling the car against irresistible changes in pace.
Interacting with the V8’s 502lb ft via the exceptional ZF-supplied eight-speed automatic gearbox turns out to be so invigorating that a gap opens organically from it to the chasing pack, and the F-type is first through the toll gates and into Wales – and, correspondingly, half a length ahead in the running order by the end of the first day’s play.
Day two takes us to the countryside north of Sennybridge and into the opening salvo of showers, each a mobile, malicious fog of Brecon perspiration. First up on this slippery proving ground is the Porsche, spinelessly chosen for the steadfastness displayed 24 hours earlier. In that respect, it doesn’t disappoint. Only a corpse would claim to be totally unmoved by the first hyper-extended knee bend of the morning, and the way that the Turbo shifts this straight-line thrust into lateral forcefulness is initially baffling.
Iron will plays its part. The chassis, and its colossal footprint, are presented to the driver almost as agents of obstinacy. Channelled by heavy, direct steering and with adaptive suspension that permits almost no body roll at all, you fire into bends with the dynamic engine mounts bolted down, 553lb ft of torque (on overboost) furiously vectoring and, come the exit, as much power at the front as is being sent to the back.
There is adhesiveness, then, and giddying pace to go with it. But neither can alleviate the bloodlessness for which the Turbo is famous. Even with a damp, empty moor laid on, adjustability and playfulness are secondary concerns. Driving it is like embarking on army manoeuvres: all the wearing physicality of battle without any of the live ammo catharsis.
Through the Jaguar F-type's seatbacks, there’s the sense of a less tenacious hold on the road without a driven front axle to share the drive burden, and where moisture persists, the traction shortfall is obvious. But, in contrast to the open-top V8 F-type, there’s a kernel of firm confidence in everything that the new coupé does.
Its unremitting power delivery no longer seems daunting. Flooring the convertible could feel like a dicey exercise, but in the R coupé, for all its wheel-spinning potential, the even higher output seems tailor-made and keenly deployable. Having more faith in the monocoque’s ability to harness the source of all the evocative noise is key and, as the miles rack up, the car’s exuberance begins to tell.
The lightly fettled steering, superficially insubstantial, becomes meticulous when pushing on. Sitting, as you do, just forward of the F-type’s rear axle, such accuracy is essential to allowvyou to position the long nose that bit more sweetly.
From there, in almost any corner imaginable, the beautifully resolved chassis takes over. Best experienced with some of the electronic shackles loosened (TracDSC readily obliges), the R flaunts its sublime front-engined, rear-drive balance at every opportunity, clamping you to an apex only for as long as you desire before a slither of extra throttle has the biddable back end changing attitude.
If that sounds like the reactiveness granted to any grunty rear-drive car, think again. The subtlety and obedience of the breakaway isn’t far short of astounding. And as the R, via its second-generation E-diff, is so good at telegraphing its whereabouts, you’re free to dip in and out of the excess as much as you like.
That choice is at the heart of what makes the car so special. Its all-wheel-drive rival wants you to make its engineered statement of intent come true. The faultlessly fast 911 Turbo wishes to function as the ultimate salve to the contemporary headache of A to B.
Not once does the Jaguar stop feeling like an event. It’s easy to get carried away when it can barely be got into, or out of, without a moment being taken to reappraise just how unspeakably pretty it is, but its specialness isn’t diluted by either a traffic-clogged return journey or the distance of retrospect.
Its huge, atmospheric pace and rousing handling at one end would be less remarkable were they not mingled so keenly with a sense of genuine companionability at the other.
It is that breadth of ability and the almost quixotic insistence that you enjoy yourself at every turn which makes the F-type R coupé not only the most compelling sports car on sale but also one of the best, period.
Jaguar F-type R coupé
Price £85,000 0-62mph 4.2sec Top speed 186mph Economy 25.5mpgCO2 259g/km Kerb weight 1650kg Engine V8, 5000cc, supercharged, petrol Power 542bhp at 6500rpm Torque 502lb ft at 3500rpm Gearbox8-spd automatic
Porsche 911 Turbo S
Price £140,000 0-62mph 3.1sec Top speed 197mph Economy 29.0mpgCO2 227g/km Kerb weight 1605kg Engine 6 cyls horizontally opposed, 3800cc, twin-turbo, petrol Power 552bhp at 6500-6750rpm Torque 516lb ft at 2100-4250rpm Gearbox 7-spd dual clutch automatic
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