Putting the Cat to Sleep: Jag Cancels F-Type

Matthew Guy
by Matthew Guy

The slinky Jaguar F-Type, a car that looks even better in person than it does in photos – at least to these jaundiced eyes – will have just one more trip around the sun. The company announced today that to celebrate the F-Type’s final model year 75 years of Jaguar sports cars, they’ll be making a limited run of ‘F-Type 75’ special editions – available in both regular and R flavors.


The line-up continues to feature an all-V8 powertrain, offered in P450 AWD and P575 AWD variants. You can guess the horsepower amounts from their trim names, yeah? Or at least as measured in metric ponies which are within a shout of the mechanical horsepower figures generally quoted in North American literature. The 2024 model year will continue to offer an RWD derivative in P450 guise, a model now featuring R-Dynamic design elements in a presumed attempt to clean out the parts bin before production halts later this year.


Future Barrett-Jackson bidders take note: the ‘75’ special editions will be appended with the usual frippery, including special badges and a trim-specific set of gloss black wheels. Standard and R variants of the 75 will have their own wheel design, suggesting JLR is comfortable splashing out a bit of extra cash on this final hurrah. Quad outboard exhausts finish off the rump whilst a smattering of special badges will also appear inside the car.


Speaking of, Jag chooses to describe the cabin as a “1+1 cockpit”, an odd label bringing to mind side-by-side off-road vehicles and the like – which this thing definitely isn’t, of course. What’s next? “Side-by-self”? Whatever nomenclature Jag marketers choose to drag into the company’s next chapter, it can’t be any more convoluted than that.


In case your attention has been elsewhere, Jaguar has designs on becoming an all-electric brand looking forwards beyond 2025. With that plan in place, the V8-powered F-Type makes for a dandy send-off to Jag’s days as purveyors of internal combustion. Confirming this, Matthew Beaven, JLR Chief Designer for Exteriors, spoke of the F-Type’s styling to celebrate their racing and sporty lineage “before Jaguar becomes an all-electric brand from 2025."


Until then, we will enjoy the supercharged 5.0L V8 in these F-Types, amplified by an active exhaust system that permits the sort of crackle-pop-burble which annoys yer irritating neighbors and entertains the cool ones. The 2024 Jag F-Type will be assembled at the company’s Castle Bromwich plant in the UK and first customer deliveries are expected to being Spring this year.


[Image: Jaguar]


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Matthew Guy
Matthew Guy

Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.

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  • Kcflyer Kcflyer on Jan 12, 2023

    Beautiful cars, Jag has always had some of the best designers. But expensive and (reputation only) unreliable is not my cup of tea.

  • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on Jan 12, 2023

    "...to celebrate their racing and sporty lineage “before Jaguar becomes an all-electric brand from 2025."


    One more moment to celebrate before we cut the cord to any and all history of the brand, basically.


    I agree with the comments above, claiming all EV in a couple years without 1) showing big product plans in advance and 2) linking the new cars to your lineage seems like a 1-2 recipe for a flop.


    And the idea that an EV can't be racing or sporty is false anyway, and that designer should not have phrased it that way. :)

    • See 1 previous
    • 28-Cars-Later 28-Cars-Later on Jan 12, 2023

      Freed I suspect you are correct.


  • FreedMike Not surprisingly, I have some ideas. What Cadillac needs, I think, is a statement. They don’t really have an identity. They’re trying a statement car with the Celestiq, and while that’s the right idea, it has the wrong styling and a really wrong price tag. So, here’s a first step: instead of a sedan, do a huge, fast, capable and ridiculously smooth and quiet electric touring coupe. If you want an example of what I’m thinking of, check out the magnificent Rolls-Royce Spectre. But this Cadillac coupe would be uniquely American, it’d be named “Eldorado,” and it’d be a lot cheaper than the $450,000 Spectre – call it a buck twenty-five, with a range of bespoke options for prospective buyers that would make each one somewhat unique. Make it 220 inches long, on the same platform as the Celestiq, give it retro ‘60s styling (or you could do a ‘50s or ‘70s throwback, I suppose), and at least 700 horsepower, standard. Why electric? It’s the ultimate throwback to ‘60s powertrains: effortlessly fast, smooth, and quiet, but with a ton more horsepower. It’s the perfect drivetrain for a dignified touring coupe. In fact, I’d skip any mention of environmental responsibility in this car’s marketing – sell it on how it drives, period.  How many would they sell? Not many. But the point of the exercise is to do something that will turn heads and show people what this brand can do.  Second step: give the lineup a mix of electric and gas models, and make Cadillac gas engines bespoke to the brand. If they need to use generic GM engine designs, fine – take those engines and massage them thoroughly into something special to Cadillac, with specific tuning and output. No Cadillac should leave the factory with an engine straight out of a Malibu or a four-banger Silverado. Third step: a complete line-wide interior redo. Stop the cheapness that’s all over the current sedans and crossovers. Just stop it. Use the Lyriq as a blueprint – it’s a big improvement over the current crop and a good first step. I’d also say Cadillac has a good blend of screen-controlled and switch-controlled user interfaces; don’t give into the haptic-touch and wall-to-wall screen thing. (On the subject of Caddy interiors – as much as I bag on the Celestiq, check out the interior on that thing. Wow.)Fourth step: Blackwing All The Things – some gas, others electric. And keep the electric/gas mix so buyers have a choice.Fifth step: be patient. That’s not easy, but if they’re doing a brand reset, it’ll take time. 
  • NJRide So if GM was serious about selling this why no updates for so long? Or make something truly unique instead of something that looked like a downmarket Altima?
  • Kmars2009 I rented one last fall while visiting Ohio. Not a bad car...but not a great car either. I think it needs a new version. But CUVs are King... unfortunately!
  • Ajla Remember when Cadillac introduced an entirely new V8 and proceeded to install it in only 800 cars before cancelling everything?
  • Bouzouki Cadillac (aka GM!!) made so many mistakes over the past 40 years, right up to today, one could make a MBA course of it. Others have alluded to them, there is not enough room for me to recite them in a flowing, cohesive manner.Cadillac today is literally a tarted-up Chevrolet. They are nice cars, and the "aura" of the Cadillac name still works on several (mostly female) consumers who are not car enthusiasts.The CT4 and CT5 offer superlative ride and handling, and even performance--but, it is wrapped in sheet metal that (at least I think) looks awful, with (still) sub-par interiors. They are niche cars. They are the last gasp of the Alpha platform--which I have been told by people close to it, was meant to be a Pontiac "BMW 3-series". The bankruptcy killed Pontiac, but the Alpha had been mostly engineered, so it was "Cadillac-ized" with the new "edgy" CTS styling.Most Cadillacs sold are crossovers. The most profitable "Cadillac" is the Escalade (note that GM never jack up the name on THAT!).The question posed here is rather irrelevant. NO ONE has "a blank check", because GM (any company or corporation) does not have bottomless resources.Better styling, and superlative "performance" (by that, I mean being among the best in noise, harshness, handling, performance, reliablity, quality) would cost a lot of money.Post-bankruptcy GM actually tried. No one here mentioned GM's effort to do just that: the "Omega" platform, aka CT6.The (horribly misnamed) CT6 was actually a credible Mercedes/Lexus competitor. I'm sure it cost GM a fortune to develop (the platform was unique, not shared with any other car. The top-of-the-line ORIGINAL Blackwing V8 was also unique, expensive, and ultimately...very few were sold. All of this is a LOT of money).I used to know the sales numbers, and my sense was the CT6 sold about HALF the units GM projected. More importantly, it sold about half to two thirds the volume of the S-Class (which cost a lot more in 201x)Many of your fixed cost are predicated on volume. One way to improve your business case (if the right people want to get the Green Light) is to inflate your projected volumes. This lowers the unit cost for seats, mufflers, control arms, etc, and makes the vehicle more profitable--on paper.Suppliers tool up to make the number of parts the carmaker projects. However, if the volume is less than expected, the automaker has to make up the difference.So, unfortunately, not only was the CT6 an expensive car to build, but Cadillac's weak "brand equity" limited how much GM could charge (and these were still pricey cars in 2016-18, a "base" car was ).Other than the name, the "Omega" could have marked the starting point for Cadillac to once again be the standard of the world. Other than the awful name (Fleetwood, Elegante, Paramount, even ParAMOUR would be better), and offering the basest car with a FOUR cylinder turbo on the base car (incredibly moronic!), it was very good car and a CREDIBLE Mercedes S-Class/Lexus LS400 alternative. While I cannot know if the novel aluminum body was worth the cost (very expensive and complex to build), the bragging rights were legit--a LARGE car that was lighter, but had good body rigidity. No surprise, the interior was not the best, but the gap with the big boys was as close as GM has done in the luxury sphere.Mary Barra decided that profits today and tomorrow were more important than gambling on profits in 2025 and later. Having sunk a TON of money, and even done a mid-cycle enhancement, complete with the new Blackwing engine (which copied BMW with the twin turbos nestled in the "V"!), in fall 2018 GM announced it was discontinuing the car, and closing the assembly plant it was built in. (And so you know, building different platforms on the same line is very challenging and considerably less efficient in terms of capital and labor costs than the same platform, or better yet, the same model).So now, GM is anticipating that, as the car market "goes electric" (if you can call it that--more like the Federal Government and EU and even China PUSHING electric cars), they can make electric Cadillacs that are "prestige". The Cadillac Celestique is the opening salvo--$340,000. We will see how it works out.
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