The Art Of Performance Tour
Firstly I’d like to start off by giving a massive thank you to Trivett’s Jaguar in Alexandria for hosting such an event and for more importantly having myself along to enjoy the performance in which each and every new Jaguar has at the push of a button.
The Art of Performance Tour (as its more technically known) officially got underway at about 9:30am from the Trivett’s dealership in Alexandria, enabling everyone to have a look at the newest Jaguar’s and Land Rover’s on the showroom floor as well as taking a peak at the Aston Martin’s and McLaren’s that were literally just next door. Before taking off on the drive however, there was a presentation about the day ahead that had to be gone through. The presentation proved just how organised this drive day was to be; GPS’ all setup in each vehicle, sign in and out sheets for each car to show who was driving the car and when, incase of any speeding tickets of course!, and a walky talky hidden inside the cabin of each car so you could here directions from the lead car when necessary. In the talk all 16 drivers were told about how Jaguar aims to deliver a feeling of performance in each and every single one of their cars no matter whereabouts it sits in the range; from E-Pace to F-Type.
at 9:30am the group walked outside of the showroom to find 8 brand new Jaguars that were to be driven throughout the day. The Jaguars were as follows;
2020 Jaguar XE P300 R-Dynamic (X2)
2020 Jaguar F-Pace SVR
2020 Jaguar XF Sportbrake
2020 Jaguar E-Pace
2020 Jaguar I-Pace
2020 Jaguar F-Type P380 R-Dynamic
2020 Jaguar F-Type R-Spec
Between the 16 people on the drive day, we’d each have the chance to drive 4 cars with a total of 8 stops (having a driver change in-between changing cars). My dad and I got out of the showroom pretty quickly and so we had the choice of which car to begin with, it wasn’t an easy choice, but we decided to start with the F-Pace SVR which we were told only got released a week in advance to this event along with the XE P300 and XF Sportbrake, very lucky indeed.
The route planned for the drive was a very scenic one, getting out of the congestion that is Sydney to start with and then reaching the beautiful, very twisty and scenic road that is the Royal National Park, located south of Sydney.
The Royal National Park was a great choice to help show off the performance characteristics of the Jaguar’s and with it also being a Friday the road was quite empty to our benefit.
Once through the National Park we went on the main highways now in the XF Sportbrake boasting a V6 Twin Turbo diesel engine which almost felt and sounded electric it was that smooth and quiet.
After the highways we reached some more twisty roads where half way through my Dad and I hopped into the XE P300 before coming back around to go down the road known as the Bulli Pass til we reached Austinmer for lunch at the Headlands Hotel which overlooked the ocean.
After a fantastic lunch, that was included , we went down stairs to the carpark to a short but well very well informed talk and walk around the R-Spec F-Type. Here are some facts about the F-Type;
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Within the front grille there is a a black bar that goes across it (where the license plate sits) and that bar is to mimic the Jaguar E-Type’s grille while at the same time keeping the modern day Jaguar grille uniform across the entire range. The original E-Type’s grille was also to pay respect to the factory in which it was built, the factory used to be where the Spitfire aeroplanes were built during WWII and so you can see the design cues of the Spitfire on the front end of the E-Type and now the F-Type (The chrome bar across the grille of the E-Type is to mimic the propellers on the Spirtfire and the badge in the centre of the E-Types' grille is to copy the cone shaped nose of it).
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The rear tail light (when on) lights up along the bottom of the light and it actually takes the same shape as the chrome surrounding did on the original E-Type, its a modern interpretation.
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You’ll notice that Jaguar has 2 badges, the leaper and the growler (shown below). When the hood of the F-type is opened up it is actually in the same shape as the growler badge, the hood also opens up the same way as the E-Type's did and this is so that at high speeds while racing the hood wouldn’t fly open and hit the front windscreen.
Leaper
Growler
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The centre mounted dual exhaust on the V6 model F-Type pays homage to the E-Type’s exhaust layout.
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When the F-Type was being drawn up originally by Ian Callum, he drew 2 curved lines (being the front and rear fender humps) which followed the design cues of the E-Type. It has got to be remembered how important the launch of the F-Type was, a 40+ year gap between models with the original being so utterly famous worldwide, the F-Type had so much to live up to.
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If you’ve ever sat inside any modern model of Jaguar you’d have noticed how the stop/start button’s red back lighting pulses at an odd but consistent rate. Believe it or not but this is to replicate the resting heartbeat of a Jaguar at 72 beats per minute, in this case 72 pulses per minute.
After hearing all of these fascinating facts about the F-Type and Jaguar’s in general, it is safe to say that every detail matters to the engineers over at Jaguar and I personally find it extremely important in a car to have meanings behind why each minor detail was specifically chosen.
Continuing on with the drive, it was now my turn to drive the brand new XE P300 and my dad to go passenger. Of course I had to put the car in Dynamic mode, which causes all the dials to light up red and for the paddle shifters to now come in to play. Going across the very well known Sea Cliff Bridge (as seen in Xbox One’s Forza Horizon 3) was a blast in the XE leaving more than half the group behind as we made our way back up through the Royal National Park before stopping again halfway up for the last car change.
Real
Forza
Saving the best til last, our final car was indeed the F-Type P380, which in dynamic mode would make the most amazing sounds, popping and crackling off the rock walls, it was the perfect car for the road to say the least.
Coming back in to Sydney the traffic was awful as you could imagine it would be at around 3:00pm on a Friday afternoon, not only the beginning of peak hour traffic, but also school zones. Either way I still kept the car in Dynamic mode since I could listen to that V6 soundtrack coming from the exhaust all day long.
Once arriving back to the dealership at closer to 4:00pm we were all thanked for our participation and ask if we enjoyed ourselves, which was a very blunt yes.
I can say with the utmost confidence that every Jaguar I drove during the day had performance in mind, like we were told at the start of the day. Whether it was the XF Sports Brake, F-Pace SVR, XE P300 or the F-Type P380 they all displayed the best steering feel I’ve experienced, great power delivery and such composure over all kinds of road surface. Without a doubt a car brand for the driver.
If you’d like a more in-depth write-up about the Jaguar models I drove, please click here or go over to the Car Reviews tab.