F-Type V8 sound set for British Museum
Jaguar's EV future looms large, but the spirit of its 5.0-litre battleaxe will live on in WC1
There was no way that the Jaguar F-Type was going to be allowed to fade away. It just wouldn’t be right for a car so rowdy and rambunctious. Yes, production is very nearly done and, yes, it won’t be long before there won’t be Jaguars with engines at all, but the F-Type legacy will live on. Because it’s going in the British Museum.
Not a whole car, however, instead two recordings of the flagship V8, the 5.0-litre that’s endured the entire decade-long production run and become such a big part of why the F-Type is so loved. ‘By sharing these with the British Library’, reads the press release, ‘Jaguar has enabled people worldwide – and for all time – to enjoy the sounds of the last combustion-engine Jaguar sports car.’ It’s enough to make you a little misty eyed.
It's been done properly, too, not just holding a phone somewhere near one of the four exhausts. The sound both inside and outside has been recorded at Gaydon’s soundproof semi-anechoic chamber, where the exhaust note was originally tuned, creating a 30-second and a 47-second track. Seems an appropriate term given the musical quality of that engine. Arguably the supercharged V8 has never sounded better, and there’s a reason for that…
Charles Richardson, Jag’s Senior Sound Engineer - there’s a proper job title, eh - said: “The F-Type’s supercharged V8 makes a unique sound because of the meticulous optimisation work we applied to the entire powertrain, most of all to the intake and exhaust systems – more than 85 iterations before we first launched the car, and developed continuously ever since.
“The culmination of that work – the sounds you experience driving the F-Type R 75 – is something we want to be available for generations to come. Archiving it with the British Library allows us to do that, and that’s something we’re very proud of.”
Jaguar says the recordings will be catalogued in the British Library archives from the Autumn, and it’s available to listen to here if you’ve somehow not experienced it before. After that it’s going to ‘archived in institutions around the world, capturing a global love for the famous growl’. Whatever Jag’s future holds, it’s not going to forget the past anytime soon - neither are we…
t as the early F Type that also means it's less contrived, but oh my word is it an extrodinary sounding car from inside and out. Only think I can think of that's similar is the old Mercedes 55k and even that is a bit tame in comparison.
I’ve got the current one and actually prefer the sound over the early cars. To the previous posters point, it’s less contrived and much harder and cleaner.
t as the early F Type that also means it's less contrived, but oh my word is it an extrodinary sounding car from inside and out. Only think I can think of that's similar is the old Mercedes 55k and even that is a bit tame in comparison.
t as the early F Type that also means it's less contrived, but oh my word is it an extrodinary sounding car from inside and out. Only think I can think of that's similar is the old Mercedes 55k and even that is a bit tame in comparison.
As an added benefit cyclists hate it when you go past with a big noise, I always give them loads of room and never do anything dicey but I've never had them shout at me and shake their fists and all that nonsense before but it happens frequently now. Sucks when someone does something you don't like in a shared space, doesn't it lycra boy
Well, i say that it's more like the controlling of thousands of tiny explosions at the precise moment per minute. 
Given my connection to this, I'm of course very pleased with this news
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff