On Friday, June 7, 2013
Jaguar F-Type : Iconic E-Type successor roars to life
It's taken the British luxury sports car maker half a century to make its most technologically advanced two-seater convertible yet. Can the F-Type outpace and perhaps even outsell the more experienced competition? We explore the possibility
Fifty long years it’s been since the world first laid eyes on the E-Type and even today some of the most profound personalities from the automotive industry struggle with words when it comes to pinpointing what exactly makes Jaguar’s first ever two-seater sports car that came to life as far back as 1961 a timeless work of automotive art.
Its signature long hood and distinctive face that resembles a hungry catfish on the verge of gobbling its prey didn’t just inspire sports car designers from the 60s but many decades thereafter. Point in case being Tesla Motors’ Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen, who quite categorically attributes the E-Type’s super-clean lines and nice elongated front as being his design guidelines when sketching what ultimately turned into the Pontiac Solstice, a roadster that went into production 44 years later. It incidentally was nominated for the North American Car of the Year and the Design of the Year for 2006. Sadly though, the once GM-owned division is no more in existence; the spirit of the iconic E-Type, however, lives on till date.
With such a strong legacy to fuel their pride, Jaguar design top boss Ian Callum and his team were presumably jittery when they began sharpening their pencils for what was to be the resurrection of Jag’s 2-door sports car success story, albeit in the 21st century.
Behold the Jaguar F-Type. It’s not exactly unchartered territory for Jaguar, but then there is the half a century hiatus to take into consideration. Adding to that ‘Angst’ is the fact that the competition, both national and international, have been upgrading, re-designing and perfecting their products in the same territory for those 50 long years, and so even a heritage smeared car maker like Jaguar is left with more than just a few drops of sweat trickling down its brow.
