Jaguar F-Type | A $45,000 V8 Gorilla

[Music] the jaguar f-type now this car to me as i'm sure mark is gonna bring up in this video many times this is kind of one of my god cars blending the perfect mix of truly drop dead good looks one of the most incredible automotive soundtracks period and the fact that this thing just gets underneath your skin to drive and because these cars have been out for almost seven years the prices are starting to come down to the realm where people can actually afford them and with its fairly disappointing recent refresh we thought it was a good time to visit this car so in this video we're going to be talking about some of the development history behind this product the engineering that went into it and what this thing is like to drive so with that enjoy the video [Music] the interior of the f-type in typical jlr fashion is kind of a mixed bag however before we start talking about this car in greater depth i will mention this the 1617 model year there was a pretty substantial mid-cycle refresh of this car when it came to the interior at its core it was the same however they did update the drive train and the infotainment so the first thing to talk about when looking at the f-type is which model do you want do you want the convertible or the coupe and from the interior perspective they're basically the same minus some of the practicality the coupe is a hatch which means the trunk is about the size of what you get in say a 718 or a cayman meaning you could use this every single day the convertible not so much it's more in line with say an lc 500 which is fine for say a trip to the golf course or a weekend jaunt but really you're going to probably struggle using that every single day moving on from that if you're a larger person like i am six foot tall and about 215 pounds you will fit in this car pretty well and if you're smaller obviously this thing is going to feel enormous however once you get to like the 6'3 mark or taller you will struggle the seats in this car are superb they look good they feel good and because this is a r coupe model it does have the fully optioned out seats which means you get porsche levels of adjustability meaning however you want these seats can contour to your body jlr does a good job designing things from a visual standpoint and their leather work has always been superb this black leather with the red contrast stitching does feel expensive and look expensive however a lot of the finer points when it comes to plastics feel straight garbage can and that's jlr for you all of the plastics around the shifter the cup holders the rubberized grips all feel extremely cheap and that's honestly a huge disappointment because at its core all the driver inputs are superb you have great visibility the steering wheel feels great the pedal box is easy to use and all of the cars core functions infotainment hvac and drive modes are also physical the infotainment in this car is dated as i mentioned earlier it did receive an update bluetooth and usb audio the navigation is subpar even in the newer models and the meridian sound system is pretty good actually for a car like this it's about on par with say the bose system in a 911 it's not great but again that's not why you're buying this car now with that let's head to the shop and put this thing up on the left underneath the 2015 jaguar f-type and a big thanks to the owner who supplied us this so i can finally get jack the gorilla off my back he's always been ranting and raving how amazing this car is so now we get it out of our system and we can move on with life so how much was this car new 117 okay and how much did the owner pay for it 48 48 five years removed right with only 9 000 miles holy the convertibles are even cheaper mark wow they're like 35 grand with a v8 which is a joke yeah and if you get this with a warranty obviously this is in that attainable price range and we're kind of going to discuss all the stuff that went into it why it's relevant today and why you would maybe want to own it so tell me a little bit about the history so this is an ian callum design car and ian callum did a lot of quite iconic english sports cars like the aston martin vanquish the db9 the jag xk the jag xj xf f-type basically every modern jag in existence at this point he has had his hands in okay and this car was a concept car he originally designed in like the 2011-2012 time period called the cx-16 which then later became this f-type and if you look at the two they're very very similar and this car was supposed to be a throwback to the e-type it's spiritual successor a two-seat roadster that was about gt touring that you could drive in a sporty fashion and he always felt that jag needed a two-seater in their lineup and it needed to have a connection to the past cars so when you look at the exterior which we don't typically talk about there is that connection there if you google all those cars there's this slight manipulation resembling the resemblance that all of them have it is a classic look this is one of the best most elegant looking designs and it probably will age well too it has aged in the past seven or whatever how long it's been out it still looks relevant today yep and the base architecture this car is a heavily revised version which you found on the xk which is the prior coupe to this which is no joke because this is i think you were telling me it's all aluminum the body structure yeah it's an all aluminum monocoque body structure all the body panels are aluminum and this is in fact at least when they designed this car 30 stiffer than anything else jlr had at the time which again they don't make sports cars but that's significant for a gt car you have all forged aluminum control arms front suspension your subframe is also aluminum in the front in the front correct the brake system the brakes are just a solid face rotor they are not a two-piece design however there's no dust shield on the back which means these little tack-down air directors here will help cool them significantly and this did get a carbon ceramic option which stay far away from yeah it's an expensive option and don't forget mark this is a double wishbone front and rear okay now i think the last thing to talk about here jack is this has a zf automatic and eight speed and there were other transmission options as they've evolved this car yeah so they did some modifications to the zf gearing based upon what engine option you had because you could have a four cylinder two variants of a six and three variants of this v8 all making different horsepower figures but for a short period of time which of course the traditional fashion we asked for it we didn't buy it and they killed it off you could get a zf six-speed manual in the supercharged six-cylinder okay so that's good to note in the back jack i thought you said this is all aluminum what's all this rusty junkyard stuff on the back well mark this is a jlr product after all and because they're owned by tata tata decided to supply some of the steel on this car and they just did a bang-up job back here it's just tremendous so this car only has 12 000 miles it was obviously driven in the midwest and these frame braces and subframe is already rusting so what's the deal so there was and this is not something jlr will admit to but if you get on the forums apparently they did not properly nickel coat a lot of the steel components and again this was not a jlr supplied component it was their parent company tanta who if you know anything about is enormous they have tons of money and they're indian so they decided to skimp on some of the undercoatings yeah and assume that people aren't going to ever have this in salty weather which is unfortunate it is because it's tarnished uh what would be a great car so they did issue a tsb for replacing some of these things however that does not cover you if you're out of warranty or if the original owner like this owner never did any of the tsb work which again that's the problem with buying a used car right so something to know other than that we have the back i noticed in the front this is one of the absolute few street cars i have laid my eyes on that has stainless steel brake lines that are factory so the front and then the back has a hard line that's connected to a really short run of stainless steel lines they look like goodridge lines but i could be mistaken and everything else in the back however you have all aluminum suspension and you know basically what you typically see now this exhaust is super loud uh it's a tentacle exhaust but it looks like i mean it's it's it's clearly makes a lot of noise because there's no sound insulation or any anything i'm pretty sure the story goes that when jlr was approached by the government and asked does your exhaust meet our noise regulations they just lie like yeah don't worry about it yeah but here's a couple other things to bring up so as we talked about this car's been out for a very very long time so they made some running changes most notably to the v8 cars so early ones like this are rear-wheel drive however probably because owners were stuffing them into trees the 16 and later cars including the svr which if there's a viewer out there with one we'd love to do a video on it um is all-wheel drive that is rear biased all-wheel drive okay but it's not nearly as slidy as this oh god no this thing is we're about to show on the drive is basically my favorite car in the world okay well this mark is like you know it's like a hellcat that can read right i mean it's a it's a more sophisticated car that you don't feel bad about but the new ones also quieted down the exhaust correct the 2020 and up the new refreshed car got away from some of the original character of this and lastly the differential in the back so v6 cars and four-cylinder cars had a torso diff however all the v8 cars both coupe and convertible went to a e-lsd which is a clutch back rear diff which you know obviously allows them to modulate what it's doing a little bit better but if you do decide to track this car they're famous for overheating the rear diffs you wouldn't track this car don't there's no point these are gt cars at their heart and you know your running costs would be so high but this is basically an lc 500 in your world and we've always talked about that it is like jack's always told me this is like the lc500 it was the spiritual japanese successor to this car and while it's not as ragey as this you definitely see the parallels so if you're somebody that's looking for that type of car and the buy-in for this is almost nothing yeah so with that mark let's head underneath the hood sounds good well we know we're under something special it's got a hood that goes up the wrong way jack yes this is an all aluminium clam shell hood with some steel rivets that like the underbody are also rusting but so what you have here mark is a five liter v8 with a tvs style blower it produces in the coupe r variant 550 horsepower and this is the interesting thing about the f-type your mileage may vary based upon what model you had they had a four-cylinder which you shouldn't buy you had three did you just say they have a four-cylinder in this car which completely ruins the f-type that's like i don't even want to say it i'll get myself in trouble anyway go ahead all right so then you have three outputs for the v6 which again this car came out for was out for a while so you had a 340 horse a 380 horse and then a 400 horse variant of the v6 which most people consider the driver's car variant of this it does drive in a more balanced fashion and it still sounds spectacular and you could get it with a manual and then you have the 5 liter 5 liter aj series v8 which four built much like they built their 3 liter v6 as well the plant is going defunct here shortly so who knows what's going to happen in this engine but it's very stout it probably has some of the similar routes to the 5-liter coyote even they won't emit it just because ford helped build this motor and we're going to take a look at the white balance right now jack i'll put up the chart it's a damn heavy car despite being aluminum it's about 3 900 pounds the cross balance is pretty decent it's you know not perfect um and then the front rear distribution you said was 52 front 48 rear yep okay which is kind of to be expected this is a gt car it's not a pure performance car and you see that on the suspension tuning as well yes like you can see in the top mounts they are electronic dampers that are you know variable and it's definitely on the softer side you know i noticed something else here why is there a little a little container here jack because the non-all-wheel drive f-types had hydraulic steering in 16 they went to an eps unit okay so i'll be curious to see how all of that feels when we get this out on the road all right [Applause] [Music] oh bobby you finally got in got me in an f-type yeah mark what what's what's the deal with this jack well as some of the viewers may know by now this is one of my favorite cars i'm going to demonstrate to you and the viewers the boys and girls at home why i love this thing so much oh great here we go [Music] [Music] i had i had no idea this car was this fast [Music] is there something is there something rattling around in the exhaust no mark this is the uh the party piece of the f-type is just it's like spinal tap turn all the way to 11. it has one of the best exhaust notes this is this is oh this is a special experience and for the price you can get these cars at now it is a no-brainer for me at least as a street car that is all about theater and this engine which of course you can't really use on the street that well is incredible it is such a special feeling car from a drive trade perspective you have great noise you have a ton of power and this cf-8 speed is brilliant i mean we always talk about it it's really good it's not special feeling but does exactly what it's supposed to yeah so that this has one of the best balances of every core fundamental that you want from a street car it's fun it's loud-ish it you know it's not just about the noise it's the ride quality it's a transmission performance it's fast it looks good i mean i don't know what possibly else you can want jack but i think you're gonna you're gonna show me something else it does that mark this is like going on a date with an emeritus professor of like classic english literature and finding out her favorite pastime is lap dancing right i mean and it certainly doesn't hurt that you have walmart tires on here he's got what 500 tread wear tires which means you are always skating around and when i first drove this um i i thought there was something wrong with it because if you hit throttle at like 15 you're losing the back end and personally yes while it's fun for the sake of the video if you want to slide around do that but this needs real tires otherwise it just becomes a liability the colder it gets i've spent a lot of time in f types over the years you've talked about this is my god car yeah and no this by far has the least amount of group of nef type i've driven most of them are on like pirelli's or pilot horses and when you do it that way you can have the balance between grip and sideways which is for me in a street car right i mean this is a deeply flawed product as we talked about in the shop no it's amazing though it just i think the tires highlight how well balanced this car is it feels really neutral it's not out of control yet when you peg this in a straight line it is remarkably fast yeah it is super quick and i think the biggest conversation with this car its closest competition the new competition is now the lc500 so a lot of people ask you know how does this compare to that from a dynamic perspective i like the character of this car kind of like i was alluding to earlier this to me is like the guilt-free version of the challenger hellcat right yeah in the challenger hellcat no one expects you to be able to read and everyone thinks you beat your wife in this car at least you're likable you know it's this nice it has a very sophisticated there's a high level of sophistication to it until you get out and drive it and you realize that's all a facade because when you start driving this it's all about the engine just like the hellcat but it's comfortable it looks good and this thing rides really really well let's talk about that for a minute because that's one of the deal breakers with cars like this uh the when lc first came out it was its biggest problem it rode like they kind of fixed that this rides great it's exactly what you want from a car you're gonna drive every day it doesn't get overly firm even when you put it in whatever it's sport mode for the dampers this car always rides great i love it i i didn't think that i would love this car but it you've sold me yeah this is one of the few cars that despite its despite its many flaws it is it gets underneath your skin in a way that few cars do right the interior isn't that great but despite all of that this thing is affordable and it makes you smile in such an intoxicating way yeah it's it's a hell of a car and if it was a hundred and five thousand no but because this is a used car proposition like our viewer bought this hats off to you man you just bought one of the best cars i've been in this year yeah it's amazing let's uh get into the final thoughts jack all right mark final thoughts maybe you'll be able to hear me over johnny arctic cat over there who just has to rev his snowmobiles for three hours that's what it's like driving the jag to most people i'm sure when you sit and rev the exhaust and you deafen all your neighbors it's one of the most exciting parts of driving the f-type let's be real there is a dying breed of rear-wheel drive fun cars that are loud brash v8 and this has a supercharger of course so it adds the extra flare and power that you're looking for but the main takeaway and i mentioned this during the drive every single part of it from the steering is okay the suspension is great the transmission is really good the power output is amazing it's way more than what you need and the fact that it can go from quiet comfortable old man mode to straight just neanderthal is what makes this so enjoyable to drive and be in and it's that fun factor that just doesn't exist in too many vehicles and there's only three that come to mind you have the hellcat the lc which is just a little bit more refined and then there's this car in the case of price range finally you can buy something for forty to fifty thousand dollars that gives you everything that you mostly want a daily driver this is one of the best cars i've been in all year and i know it's older okay and you might wonder about the new ones well the new ones strip away a lot of the sound they go all-wheel drive so they took something that was just animal mode into now you can't have a lot of fun and this is why you buy this car thanks for watching i'll see you next [Music] time [Music] you

Channel: savagegeese

Views: 351,131

Rating: 4.9234085 out of 5

Keywords: 2021, 2020, cars, trucks, reviews, carvana, carfax, cargurus, fun, power, toyota supra, convertible, v8, loudest car, best used car, reliable, problems, hellcat, redeye, gt500, GT350, Mustang, Camaro, BMW M8, LC500, muscle cars, pony cars, Corvette c8, GM, sports cars, expensive, e92 M3

Id: UxqyVNh5eQ8

Length: 20min 41sec (1241 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/edinburghiloveyou44]

Challenger Hellcat: no one expects you to read, and everyone thinks you beat your wife.

One of their best one liners.

[u/kriswithakthatplays]

It has such a fantastic engine note and does lend itself to getting wrapped around poles. I recently sat in a friend of mine's and it was quite nice. Though, his has 25k miles and has already had to have the rear differential replaced. It wasn't rebuildable and Jag had to manufacture him one and send it over to be installed. 3-4 weeks later he could drive it again.

Anecdotal for sure, but not confidence inspiring in the least. But there are so many other positive things in this car's favor. It's a dilemma for sure.

[u/zoo32]

The hardtop version is one of the best looking sports cars ever made in the $80K price range. It looks so good and when I do see one, which is rare, it’s a head turner for sure.

And then there’s that throaty exhaust 👀

[u/gHHqdm5a4UySnUFM]

I've always loved the look of these cars, glad to know it lives up to the styling. I really enjoy what Jack brings to the channel and he pushes Mark a little outside of his comfort zone and they have a good chemistry.

[u/Sjetware]

This was entertaining to see this morning! I feel biased of course (and I did a 3 year breakdown of my ownership just recently - https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/gcglzf/3_year_ownership_review_of_an_ftype_r/), but I do think this is an excellent car.

I just don't have shitty tires on mine. Pilot Sport 4s here!

[u/Falldog]

This supplanted the GT-R on my "affordable dream car" wish list a few years back. It just looks great and sounds absolutely stunning.

[u/YouAreMentalM8]

There's a 2017 SVR near me for just under US$70k and it has less than 5,000 miles. Mighty tempting.

[u/narwhal_breeder]

A gorilla is pretty apt. I test drove them a bunch. Pretty powerful, pretty heavy. Was very similar in handling balance to my S550 Mustang GT.

[u/jonnyanonobot]

The reliability frightens me.