Jaguar S-Type R

Top new Fat Man's Car?

By PH Staff / Thursday, 3 January 2002 / Loading comments

We're big fans of fat man cars at PistonHeads. Personally I've parked my belly behind the wheel of one or two and just love the presence achieved by bulky yet sporty saloons. They are the prop-forwards of the motoring world but with their own teeth and the pace of one of those scrawny blokes that prance about scoring tries, flicking their wavy hair and pulling the birds.

Fat Man's Cars are not PC. Not nimble, not frugal, not necessarily subtle and intimidating when they dominate your rear view mirror. Perhaps that's why we find them so appealing. In a beautifully un-PC manner they emphasise that motoring can be all about power and style. A stylish body in which to hide one's unstylish body and they have the guts to haul the guts.

The classic FMC is of course the Jaguar. Classically lacking rear leg room to make space for front stomach room the Jags of old were huge enough to accomodate the biggest pie masters. These days Jaguar sadly seems more concerned with making cars for thin blokes.

The new 'R' may be the saviour of the S Type however. It has the look of a car eager to court fat men of the future. The FMC look. It's no one feature that grants it entry to the chubby club and we think it may even be a little cramped for bigger-bellied-boys but it's got the look. Bigger alloys, tinted lights, a different grille complete with 'growler' emblem all suggest that this is a car for big blokes in button stressed shirts and not the quiche eating advertising types that Jaguar TV ads currently seem to be targeted at.

The supercharged 4.2 litre V8 is just the job for taking on the other FMC's in the upper-obese-executive segment of the market and elsewhere it's being suggested that this is what's needed to take on BMW's mighty M5. Whether it can match the benchmark set by BMW remains to be seen - facts and figures quoted by the respective manufacturers won't bear that out - we'll await the word on the street.

However we do believe that the car has the looks to rival BMW particularly as BM seem about to embark on an ugly period. Jaguar could challenge BMW's iconic status as the king of modern Fat-Man-Cars but it must stop diluting the brand with donkey powered front wheel drive saloons and concentrate on overly powerful motorway munchers such as this beautiful S-Type R.

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