RE: Paris 2012: F-Type, full details
Discussion
DonkeyApple said:
nbirch said:
I'll be going against the grain by saying I find this an utterly uninspiring effort from Jag. Part Maserati, part Nissan, part Spyker... If this is a natural successor of the E-type its a FAIL.... it's not substantially different from anything else out in the market techinically, atheistically its uninspiring and its certainly not inexpensive for what it is. If it was 40K new, then it would cause a few raised eyebrows in Germany, Japan, and Italy, but as it stands big opportunity missed.
It's probably not though. At £40k the margin would be tiny and they wouldn't be able to build enough so it would be a commercial disaster. They will have priced it smartly and spent a lot of time planning where to slot into the various global markets.
For starters they need to consider their capacity capabilities. Secondly their is image. JLR is a prestige brand and one that is very fearful of the Arthur Daley legacy. In addition to that, most new money shops by price tag not concept of quality so if an F Type is more expensive than a Boxster then it is superior if it's purpose is to inform others that you are wealthy.
Anyway, you and I both know that margins on the fit out and spec above and beyond the bases model is where they'll get best returns. In isolation they may well be making a reasonable return on the F-type, but as has been discussed, in the real world, when you start to spec it up if you are getting to the point that this is now a $90K car then comparisons are going to be made with the F type and a host of arguably better looking, better handling, more able choices a customer will consider. Its not unreasonable to think that a customer may consider a new Jag, or a used Aston, Ferrari or Lambo.
Again, as a Jag fanboy, I was excited for them to even be talking about a natural successor of the E type... its great that they can dare to think with such lofty ambition, since the dross they've pedalled out since the 70's through to the mid 2000"s
The E types two main trump cars, in comparison to its competition of the day was that it was fast, its was a beautiful design, and it was cheap. Can Jag say that for the F type. No, on all counts. What galls me is that if it had been 40K or 45K base, then you are drawing people through the sales room doors because they would be also considering Carreras and M3's, quick Audis and Merc's (outside of the RS and AMG brigades).
Still a FAIL.
nbirch said:
Balderdash! Capacity constraints indeed, if Jaguar start out with that principal then they are forever doomed to mediocrity.
I don't get this?Are new factories free to build?;)
If you move into a cheaper price bracket to increase volume demand then 2 things happen. Firstly, your margin is slashed and secondly you need to invest in setting up and running the additional capacity. This cost has to then be amortised against sales margins which you have just slashed.
More volume doesn't guarantee more profit.
JLR made over a billion last year by specialising in their business model, the manufacture, sale and servicing of luxury cars. Why would they ever want to adopt a Walmart style business model which would make them less profit and work in a totally different way to how all their employees and factories are set up as well a taking the brand down market at a time when the best profits are made in the luxury sector?
Edited by DonkeyApple on Sunday 30th September 10:55
I think it looks FANTASTIC!
Luckily for us grumpy secondhand buyers, Jag's depreciate a lot... Was just looking at ads for the 2007 XK 4.2 coupé ads, a lot of classy and modern GT for the money!
Love the F-type, would be happy with the V6, GREAT alternative for us living in tax heavy countries... Thank you Jaguar, you are doing a lot of things right these days.
Luckily for us grumpy secondhand buyers, Jag's depreciate a lot... Was just looking at ads for the 2007 XK 4.2 coupé ads, a lot of classy and modern GT for the money!
Love the F-type, would be happy with the V6, GREAT alternative for us living in tax heavy countries... Thank you Jaguar, you are doing a lot of things right these days.
DJRC said:
Carl_Docklands said:
DJRC said:
Carl_Docklands said:
Twincam16 said:
DJRC said:
The XK is moving upwards, into much more genuine SL and DB9 volante territory. Jaguar have said thing all along.
People are complaining about the price of the F-type, but bear this in mind - it undercuts the 911 while going just as fast. The E-type did that.The Carrera S is quicker on the majority of circuits than the SLS AMG coupe even though the 911 is 90BHP/ton down against the Merc.
Unless Jag have pulled off some sort of engineering miracle, the F-type will get spanked unless, its a straight drag race.
Its a road car. Race tracks and the Ring dont count.
If the bottom jag beats a boxster s around that circuit we know she will also do well on say, the welsh mountain run (Newport via Llandudno).
Have you done much objective testing? Say using a standard test route and punting different cars along it. I have. I used to use the Kingston roundabout just outside Lewes and take the cut through down to Newhaven. I road tested everything I bought and looked at buying down that road. Elises, Elans, MX5s, MGFs, TVR Griffiths, Sagaris, integrale and even a normal Sierra. Do you know the difference in the times? 10 seconds thats all. The run would take roughly 11mins no matter what you were in at different times of the day and the maximum difference I ever got between the quickest and slowest down that run was 10secs.
On the public road, taking into account road traffic conditions and the general public, the difference in speed between 2 different cars and 2 different drivers almost always comes down to the driver and their perception of the road/traffic conditions. Not the car. Its a marketing falacy. I can take an MX5 and keep up with pretty much anything I want thats being driven suitably sensibly over the vast majority of B roads in this country or I can take the diesel ML and despatch pretty much anything else on the road over most A roads.
Your argument is for marketing, not reality.
The general public will not drive to Wales from London on a Friday night and get up at 3am to drive through the welsh mountains for 5 hours with the roof down and in the pitch black (until the sun appears anyway!).
Whether it is liked or not the shorted tighter circuits will sort the wheat from the chaff in the handling stakes. If magazines post a good time at Hockenheim in a car, it demonstrates that the car is well sorted in terms of suspension and handling, not just power.
All the top mags use test tracks as benchmarks for how a car handles and that is all they are - benchmarks.
MX5, nice car but the F-type will be on another level, as it should be for its cost. Whether you can deploy all this power on the 5pm slog home is moot in this context.
And to to the poster who said that nobody puts their car on the track, you will find that for Porsche owners this is one major plus, in that they can handle track days and are warrantied for such use.
Why would you buy a £90k sports car and not want it to be well engineered for high speed track use? that is just a bizarre argument to be having, this car is not pitched as a lumpy GT for the over 50s cigar smoker, look at the advertising, it is pitched directly at Porsche fans.
Edited by Carl_Docklands on Sunday 30th September 13:44
Carl_Docklands said:
DJRC said:
Carl_Docklands said:
DJRC said:
Carl_Docklands said:
Twincam16 said:
DJRC said:
The XK is moving upwards, into much more genuine SL and DB9 volante territory. Jaguar have said thing all along.
People are complaining about the price of the F-type, but bear this in mind - it undercuts the 911 while going just as fast. The E-type did that.The Carrera S is quicker on the majority of circuits than the SLS AMG coupe even though the 911 is 90BHP/ton down against the Merc.
Unless Jag have pulled off some sort of engineering miracle, the F-type will get spanked unless, its a straight drag race.
Its a road car. Race tracks and the Ring dont count.
If the bottom jag beats a boxster s around that circuit we know she will also do well on say, the welsh mountain run (Newport via Llandudno).
Have you done much objective testing? Say using a standard test route and punting different cars along it. I have. I used to use the Kingston roundabout just outside Lewes and take the cut through down to Newhaven. I road tested everything I bought and looked at buying down that road. Elises, Elans, MX5s, MGFs, TVR Griffiths, Sagaris, integrale and even a normal Sierra. Do you know the difference in the times? 10 seconds thats all. The run would take roughly 11mins no matter what you were in at different times of the day and the maximum difference I ever got between the quickest and slowest down that run was 10secs.
On the public road, taking into account road traffic conditions and the general public, the difference in speed between 2 different cars and 2 different drivers almost always comes down to the driver and their perception of the road/traffic conditions. Not the car. Its a marketing falacy. I can take an MX5 and keep up with pretty much anything I want thats being driven suitably sensibly over the vast majority of B roads in this country or I can take the diesel ML and despatch pretty much anything else on the road over most A roads.
Your argument is for marketing, not reality.
The general public will not drive to Wales from London on a Friday night and get up at 3am to drive through the welsh mountains for 5 hours with the roof down and in the pitch black (until the sun appears anyway!).
Whether it is liked or not the shorted tighter circuits will sort the wheat from the chaff in the handling stakes. If magazines post a good time at Hockenheim in a car, it demonstrates that the car is well sorted in terms of suspension and handling, not just power.
All the top mags use test tracks as benchmarks for how a car handles and that is all they are - benchmarks.
MX5, nice car but the F-type will be on another level, as it should be for its cost. Whether you can deploy all this power on the 5pm slog home is moot in this context.
And to to the poster who said that nobody puts their car on the track, you will find that for Porsche owners this is one major plus, in that they can handle track days and are warrantied for such use.
Why would you buy a £90k sports car and not want it to be well engineered for high speed track use? that is just a bizarre argument to be having, this car is not pitched as a lumpy GT for the over 50s cigar smoker, look at the advertising, it is pitched directly at Porsche fans.
Edited by Carl_Docklands on Sunday 30th September 13:44
DonkeyApple said:
Also, people who track their cars are a small % of the buyer market.
True - but there's still plenty of people that do this in numbers terms even if it is a tiny percentage...I did Snetterton 300 last month and the place was rammed. Probably more than 100 cars there and Brands GP attracts all sorts of posh metal but having looked at the weight of this car, I don't think there'll be many F-types there and that's a shame as it sounded as if it was going to pitched as an every day car that you can take on track - like a Porsche in fact - as Carl said.
There just aren't that many places where you can let a fast car have its head these days.
J-P said:
True - but there's still plenty of people that do this in numbers terms even if it is a tiny percentage...
I did Snetterton 300 last month and the place was rammed. Probably more than 100 cars there and Brands GP attracts all sorts of posh metal but having looked at the weight of this car, I don't think there'll be many F-types there and that's a shame as it sounded as if it was going to pitched as an every day car that you can take on track - like a Porsche in fact - as Carl said.
There just aren't that many places where you can let a fast car have its head these days.
The reality is though, that PH is a bubble. 100 cars on a track day doesn't register as a valid or commercial number. I did Snetterton 300 last month and the place was rammed. Probably more than 100 cars there and Brands GP attracts all sorts of posh metal but having looked at the weight of this car, I don't think there'll be many F-types there and that's a shame as it sounded as if it was going to pitched as an every day car that you can take on track - like a Porsche in fact - as Carl said.
There just aren't that many places where you can let a fast car have its head these days.
Most cars like this will never be given a head of steam by their first owner.
Where I live are lots of 911s amongst other cars. They don't move from week to week and when they do they don't move far or fast.
DonkeyApple said:
The reality is though, that PH is a bubble. 100 cars on a track day doesn't register as a valid or commercial number.
Most cars like this will never be given a head of steam by their first owner.
Where I live are lots of 911s amongst other cars. They don't move from week to week and when they do they don't move far or fast.
I agree. My point is not about how owners use their cars or even that Jag should build a track day special. I'm saying as a sportscar it should feel at home on track and should be designed with an eye to the fact that an owner might take it on track and should be able to enjoy the car it in that environment.Most cars like this will never be given a head of steam by their first owner.
Where I live are lots of 911s amongst other cars. They don't move from week to week and when they do they don't move far or fast.
Now to be fair without driving it, there's no way of knowing if Jaguar have fulfilled that brief but with a weight of 1600+ kilos, the sort of people who would buy a car with the intention of using it on track ocasionally, probably won't buy an F-type.
I.e. enthusiast Porsche owners won't be looking here for their next car, and prior to the figures being released last week many probably thought that they'd try it out and may be have one for their next car.
Edited by J-P on Sunday 30th September 21:47
whoami said:
No idea where some posters get their ideas from.
Perhaps they could explain?
To expand on my comments:Perhaps they could explain?
1/ I never stated that 4.9 to 60 was slow per se. Rather, that with 380bhp and talk of "lightweight" I would have expected it to be a bit quicker. Then I saw it was over 1600kg and it made sense. To qualify that, I wouldn't call a BMW 1M particularly lightweight but they hit 60 quicker and are less powerful. Before anyone says it, I'm not obsessed with 0-60 times - it was an observation based on the press release.
2/ I also didn't expect the car to be a stripped out racer with no creature comforts. But lightweight isn't 1650kg, has anyone seen the weight of a 991? Let alone a boxter... If it was 1475 and had a decent stereo then that would be fair play.
Overall, as said before I think this is an exciting new car and looking forward to seeing the coupe.
Hope that clears it up somewhat.
J-P said:
I agree. My point is not about how owners use their cars or even that Jag should build a track day special. I'm saying as a sportscar it should feel at home on track and should be designed with an eye to the fact that an owner might take it on track and should be able to enjoy the car it in that environment.
Now to be fair without driving it, there's no way of knowing if Jaguar have fulfilled that brief but with a weight of 1600+ kilos, the sort of people who would buy a car with the intention of using it on track ocasionally, probably won't buy an F-type.
I.e. enthusiast Porsche owners won't be looking here for their next car, and prior to the figures being released last week many probably thought that they'd try it out and may be have one for their next car.
I think that's a very fair view for a definition of a sportscar, but today the definition is so wide that it covers everything from track cars to basically hot saloons. Now to be fair without driving it, there's no way of knowing if Jaguar have fulfilled that brief but with a weight of 1600+ kilos, the sort of people who would buy a car with the intention of using it on track ocasionally, probably won't buy an F-type.
I.e. enthusiast Porsche owners won't be looking here for their next car, and prior to the figures being released last week many probably thought that they'd try it out and may be have one for their next car.
Edited by J-P on Sunday 30th September 21:47
In modern parlance the Jag is definitely a sportscar, whether within the many sub groups it is a GT, a roadster or whatever, I'm not sure.
But I don't think you'd have any issues tracking it but the Jaguar brand isn't synonymous with track days in the same way as Porsche is because Jag have never made a smaller car in recent memory, just saloons and GTs so this is probably a perception issue as much as anything.
J-P said:
I agree. My point is not about how owners use their cars or even that Jag should build a track day special. I'm saying as a sportscar it should feel at home on track and should be designed with an eye to the fact that an owner might take it on track and should be able to enjoy the car it in that environment.
Now to be fair without driving it, there's no way of knowing if Jaguar have fulfilled that brief but with a weight of 1600+ kilos, the sort of people who would buy a car with the intention of using it on track ocasionally, probably won't buy an F-type.
I.e. enthusiast Porsche owners won't be looking here for their next car, and prior to the figures being released last week many probably thought that they'd try it out and may be have one for their next car.
The percentage of "sports car" owners that take their cars on track is minute and you really seem to be labouring the point in this case.Now to be fair without driving it, there's no way of knowing if Jaguar have fulfilled that brief but with a weight of 1600+ kilos, the sort of people who would buy a car with the intention of using it on track ocasionally, probably won't buy an F-type.
I.e. enthusiast Porsche owners won't be looking here for their next car, and prior to the figures being released last week many probably thought that they'd try it out and may be have one for their next car.
Edited by J-P on Sunday 30th September 21:47
Particularly considering that no-one has even driven the car. Still this is PH I suppose.
J-P said:
DonkeyApple said:
Also, people who track their cars are a small % of the buyer market.
True - but there's still plenty of people that do this in numbers terms even if it is a tiny percentage...I did Snetterton 300 last month and the place was rammed. Probably more than 100 cars there and Brands GP attracts all sorts of posh metal but having looked at the weight of this car, I don't think there'll be many F-types there and that's a shame as it sounded as if it was going to pitched as an every day car that you can take on track - like a Porsche in fact - as Carl said.
There just aren't that many places where you can let a fast car have its head these days.
k all compared to the 1000s in California who Jag expect/want/need to buy this car.This is an export or die car.
I was running along in company with a trade-plated silver one on the M42 this Friday... Impressions were that the styling is a bit fussy (especially the rear lights), and that it made a nice noise (clearly but pleasantly audible even over the racket from my less-than-totally silent old V6...). It was clearly very brisk, as whilst it was being driven entirely politely, it was nipping into gaps with that snappy authority that really good acceleration and responsiveness permits.
DonkeyApple said:
I think that's a very fair view for a definition of a sportscar, but today the definition is so wide that it covers everything from track cars to basically hot saloons.
In modern parlance the Jag is definitely a sportscar, whether within the many sub groups it is a GT, a roadster or whatever, I'm not sure.
But I don't think you'd have any issues tracking it but the Jaguar brand isn't synonymous with track days in the same way as Porsche is because Jag have never made a smaller car in recent memory, just saloons and GTs so this is probably a perception issue as much as anything.
Very true - I completely agree with this but Jaguar also have a rich racing heritage, which they have never really capitalised on.In modern parlance the Jag is definitely a sportscar, whether within the many sub groups it is a GT, a roadster or whatever, I'm not sure.
But I don't think you'd have any issues tracking it but the Jaguar brand isn't synonymous with track days in the same way as Porsche is because Jag have never made a smaller car in recent memory, just saloons and GTs so this is probably a perception issue as much as anything.
Let's all forget everything that we have read about this car (and any car for that matter) prior to it's reveal as it was all hyperbole. Journalists need to sell products just as much as OEM's...it's in their interest to discuss openly future products without much substance behind claims made. Anybody that falls for this needs to read Private Eye for a few months.
Post reveal...and irrespective of it's weight and 0-60 times...What do we really know about how this car drives on the road or track?
Nobody outside of Jaguar has driven it yet.
What we do know is that it looks promising. Jaguar has put literally hundreds of hours of development on the road AND track. It doesn't neatly fit into any of the segments occupied by Porsche/Merc/BMW/Audi etc, currently a very JLR thing to do.
Jaguar Land Rover have made few mistakes whilst under the stewardship of TATA.
I'm inclined to believe that if they are saying it's a proper Jaguar Sports Car then it probably is...and it's been such a long time since they made a proper Jaguar Sports Car that none of us really know what this means in today's terms. Although comfort matched with balanced performance seems to be Jaguar and this looks to fit the bill...but nobody really knows yet....spooky!
This might be the car that tempts me out of the Audi - BMW vortex that I'm stuck in.
Post reveal...and irrespective of it's weight and 0-60 times...What do we really know about how this car drives on the road or track?
Nobody outside of Jaguar has driven it yet.
What we do know is that it looks promising. Jaguar has put literally hundreds of hours of development on the road AND track. It doesn't neatly fit into any of the segments occupied by Porsche/Merc/BMW/Audi etc, currently a very JLR thing to do.
Jaguar Land Rover have made few mistakes whilst under the stewardship of TATA.
I'm inclined to believe that if they are saying it's a proper Jaguar Sports Car then it probably is...and it's been such a long time since they made a proper Jaguar Sports Car that none of us really know what this means in today's terms. Although comfort matched with balanced performance seems to be Jaguar and this looks to fit the bill...but nobody really knows yet....spooky!
This might be the car that tempts me out of the Audi - BMW vortex that I'm stuck in.
J-P said:
Very true - I completely agree with this but Jaguar also have a rich racing heritage, which they have never really capitalised on.
That goes right back to the days of William Lyons, unfortunately. He always saw Jaguar's main business as selling saloon cars and saw the sports-racers as a way of developing engines, brakes and suspension for them. The XK120 and E-type genuinely surprised him in terms of sales as he genuinely couldn't fathom why so many people would want a sports car. Tellingly, the XJ-S project was the last one he directed, and I reckon its lack of sportiness compared with the E-type speaks volumes about the way he approached the design and engineering of a car.Daft thing is, had Lyons recognised the potential of this racing heritage, I reckon Jaguar would have a long-established tuning wing to rival BMW's M-division for decades now.
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