Prior Convictions: Grace, Space and Patience
The E-Type Zero is just the start; Prior ponders electric Jags
There's not much room inside a Jaguar E-Type, to be fair. It's an influential car whose template is rather well followed by the F-Type in that respect. But evidently there is enough space underneath its nose, as you'll know if you stayed attached to your television until Huw Edwards was into his nth hour of Harry and Meghan's wedding, to shoehorn an electric drivetrain into an area that was once occupied by an XK six-cylinder engine and its accompanying gearbox.
So well received was it that Jaguar has since decided to remodel other E-Types in the same fashion, which presumably has some appeal to those who have agreed to part with 'north of £300,000' for the privilege. And perhaps that's unsurprising, because old seems to be the new new, if 911s reimagined by Singer, and rethought Stratoses and Integrales are anything to go by.
The reimagining about this E-Type Zero, though, is how radical it truly is. What really strikes me about driving an E-Type is not its famed exterior. A surprisingly large number of people seem to deem the E less beautiful than Enzo Ferrari said it was these days (making the E-Type's looks the most over-under-overrated [?] of all time?). No, what marks out an E-Type is the smooth, muscular straight-six XK engine that sits beneath its bonnet. Thus in converting these E-Types Jaguar has taken the least efficient but most charismatic part of the car and replaced by one of the most efficient and effective, but arguably least interesting power sources known to motordom.
Our esteemed correspondent didn't seem to mind that, which is fine, but the interesting thing is that what fits one, fits all. The engine and the gearbox in XK-engined Jaguars always occupied a similar amount of space and the new powertrain design is designed fit into whatever is left behind when you take them out. Given so many modern electric cars use a flat 'skateboard' architecture, that this drivetrain is so neatly packaged and looks very good is intriguing. More so is that any car that uses a similar drivetrain - and between 1949 and 1992 there were a lot of them - is able to be given this kind of conversion.
Away from the of Jaguar's most famous sporting offspring, there are a lot of luxurious cars in the back catalogue. One some of which an extraordinarily quiet and smooth drivetrain could seem disarmingly appealing.
It all very trendy and stylish I'm sure, but unless I'm missing something, there seems to be an awful lot of pollution going on designing and building the things in the first place.
Perhaps we shouldn't mention the rare elements that go into making the batteries and all of the coal fired power stations burning away making all of the electricity to power them.
Yes I'm a Luddite, but what are the real world wide benefits of going electric?
if I were to buy an electric car today, I'd have the problems of a woeful range, and an even worse problem of finding somewhere to charge the damn thing up, never mind having to wait ages to do it.
The fact is a petrol engine is a dinosaur from a different age, but in the real world it just works. The electric car is a nonese. Remember the world runs on oil, and despite what you read in the papers there is plenty of it. There is no way that multi trillion dollar companies are going to sit back and let the internal combustion engine die off anytime soon, it will just get cleaner and more efficient.
I might not be driving in 20-30 years time but I believe there will be petrol and diesel cars not only on the road but still being manufactured.
If you drive 300 miles and you need to recharge your ipace, how long do you have to wait if the charging points are in use? how long will it take to fully recharge the battery?
Thats not the thinking of a Luddite, that's someone who is a realist.
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