With a big, square pipe in the middle of the car where the V6 models boast two smaller round ones, the 2.0-liter version of the F-Type should be easy to spot. But we think the sound should be your first clue.
The first videos released don't give us enough of the aural experience we wanted, but for brief moments, you can hear the 2-liter turbo bellowing away.
Not surprisingly, it sounds a lot like the Golf R and Civic Type R, but in a more... British way. We've known about this project for a very long time, and 300 horsepower is all the grunt you need in the real world, so we're not put off by the reduced displacement.
The decision to offer a smaller engine should help Jaguar boost sales slightly in markets where taxation is done according to emissions or displacement. It might also be their way of making the most of available Ingenium tech.
It's a shame that despite its aluminum clamshell hood and two-seater configuration, the F-Type is not a lightweight car. Even with the 50-kilo reduction over the front wheels, the coupe tips the scales at 1.5 tons. So it's probably a good thing that the turbo packs 400 Nm of wheel-twisting torque (only 50 less than the 3.0L).
Drag race something like a Porsche 718 Cayman and you're going to have a bad time. But in isolation, performance isn't bad, as 0 o 100 km/h takes only 0.3 seconds more than in the V6 automatic model.
They say economics should never factor into a sportscar buying decision, but they always do. And we have to say the base model makes all the sense in the world. Emissions drop from 199 grams (234 grams for the manual) down to just 163 grams in the 2.0-liter, which also gets about 40 mpg combined (7 l/100km). And better yet, it's also about £4,000 cheaper.
The top speed drops by 6 to 155 mph (by 10 to 250 km/h), but you're still just as fast as any BMW or Mercedes out there on the road.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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