Jaguar revealed a new version of its
F-Type sports car with a turbocharged four-cylinder engine.
With the New York Auto Show opening its doors in
Manhattan today, Jaguar has not only confirmed the four-cylinder for the US
market, but revealed pricing as well.
The 2018 Jaguar F-Type with the 2.0-liter
turbocharged inline-four will start at US$ 59,900 – just cresting the US$ 60k mark
when you take the mandatory US$ 995 destination charge into account.
That undercuts the V6/manual model by just US$ 1,500, but brings with it some benefits. For
starters, it's more economical – not just in purchase price, but at the fuel
pump as well. It's also lighter by a good 114 pounds (mostly in the nose), improving handling
balance.
In return, the four-cylinder option is only 44
horsepower less potent than the base V6. It's rated at 296 hp and 295 lb-ft of
torque, for a 0-60 time of 5.4 seconds (instead of the 5.1) and topping out at
155 mph (instead of 161). We wouldn't be surprised to see that 340-horse
version discontinued in due course, leaving the 380-hp version as the next step
up.
While it may not be substantially cheaper than the
V6, the four-cylinder F-Type starts making sense the same way that the Ford
Mustang does with the EcoBoost engine instead of the big V8, or the Bentley
Continental GT does with the lighter V8 in the nose instead of the larger W12.
The Ingenium-powered version's introduction also
brings the F-Type family up to a mind-boggling 24 variants – with four, six, or
eight cylinders, and in coupe and convertible body-styles some even offered
with a manual (in addition to the eight-speed automatic) or all-wheel drive
(instead of rear).
The model line extends all the way up to the SVR
model, with a 5.0-liter supercharged V8 good for nearly twice as much power at
575 hp – but costing more than twice as much at US$ 125,000.
