It’s the shape of the thing… that hits you first.
The long hood, the open face, and those hips… To say that Ian Callum’s style influence at Jaguar has been a good thing is as vast an understatement as saying the F-Type is a non-subtle piece of automobile.
Despite the fact that your heart never fully moves on from the lines of the car, your eyes do… that’s because your ears are taken over by the noise of the thing.
Between the valley created by the front fenders, you have a 5.0-liter V8 and it works like a superhero duo with the supercharger sitting on top of it. Batman and Robin don’t cause screams like these two though, because they don’t use guns. The F-Type, however, sounds like it’s fronting an assault on everything and everyone it drives by because there’s the rapid fire pop when you lift off the throttle.
This is one of the few machines that sounds as good or even better off the throttle as it does when your foot is attempting to squeeze the life out of the go pedal.
The steering is fine but you won’t be dancing with a Porsche on a curvy road. The gearbox is perfectly suited for the car because it’s the oft-used and always loved ZF eight speed. Sending the power out to all four wheels, you’d think would sap some of the RWD fun of the prior R iteration… but you’d be wrong.
This is still the Gentleman Hooligan’s ride of choice. If you desire to arrive to your local high society snob spot, you can do so sideways and loud. And I recommend you do this everywhere you go by pressing that exhaust button and leaving all four pipes un baffled so they may sing the V8 song to all those present in a three county radius.
You want one of these for yourself. That’s no surprise. You’ll need to part with at least $130,000. In an anti-porsche move, the options list doesn’t climb too high from there. You don’t need the carbon ceramics because you’re not taking this to the track…. So save the dough. Enjoy the open road, the view of the hood and fenders stretching before you, and one of the hilariously great soundtracks of any modern vehicle on this planet.
[Disclaimer: Jaguar tossed us the keys to the F-Type SVR for a week and included a tank of fuel. That fuel went quick, as most of it was burnt up by the exhaust farting awesomeness into the air.]