Jaguar F-Type V8 S Convertible Review: That Sort of a Thing

The way she looks

A stroll through the streets of Downtown Tokyo would make you realize how influenced the youth of Japan is with the Western world. More than anything, in the way they dress. A slender Japanese lady dressed in a Kimono, taking those quick, tiny strides with her timid gaze fixated to the pavement has for ages been an expression of feminine grace. Young Japanese girls dressed in spunky, skimpy skirts with those knee-high boots, is the order of the day, though. Graceful Kimonos are nice, but the hipster chick in a mini is the more natural longing of a playful, boisterous heart. It’s good to be bad.

The F-type is a supermodel of sorts – a global diva, with just a hint of some odd vagary. Put a mildly oriental face to a leggy western siren, if you will, for an analogy. And we’ll tell you why.

The F-Type is laced with seduction at its rear. In isolation, those slim tail-lamps are akin to a pair of splintery slashes in the skin by a honed razor. They ooze unsullied lust. The squat, aggressive theme has been executed in a beguilingly simplistic way. It’s like Coldplay’s music, bewitchingly easy and accessible, yet incredibly complex and masterful. That rump is a sheer visual festivity. And simple and uncluttered as it may look, only the designers at Jaguar would know the exact volume of the midnight oil they burnt before attaining that superlative expression. The sensually shaped haunches, along with those quad exhausts make the F-type’s derriere automotive porn for the connoisseurs of cultivated car design. Oozing oomph with inconspicuous simplicity, the F-type’s rear tells you how to achieve an orgasm while practicing Zen meditation.

In side profile, the alluring simplicity continues to dazzle. The clean, uncluttered surfaces with the mildest of creases endow the F-type a tightly curvaceous waist. It’s not the shape you achieve by feasting on steroids while having dedicated your life to pumping iron. The F-Type’s shapeliness is more akin to that of a ballerina or an acro-dancer – athletic and firm, yet virile and sensuous. You’d hardly ever notice the waist and shoulder lines on those metallic sheets until you pay attention, and yet, they add enormously to the taut, tight appearance. The crease above the door sills adds enormously to the dynamic stance of the F-type ever so inconspicuously. Those wheel spokes – are they made of metal, or have Jaguar found a way to make silk take a tougher form and then twisted it ever so gently? Those elements are a purists’ delight. For once, there’s a genuine sports car that could well afford itself as a trophy for the English, corroborating their greatness in the industrialized world.

So while we are left enraptured with the F-type’s enamouring form as we look at it sideways or from the rear, the somewhat dissonant visage manages to put a break in our hypnotized state. The immaculate harmony and cohesive design veers off a bit from its otherwise consummate form towards the front.

To start with, we must admit, we love that Maserti-sque snout, hosting the legendary Jaguar face. Those swept back lamps lined with boomerang shaped DRL’s, however, aren’t quite in line with the horizontally themed, razor sharp virtuosity we witnessed at the rear. That bulge over the bonnet exudes muscle and character, and we cannot help but steal another glance. It isn’t, however, quite the transcendental sublimity we had the rare pleasure to witness astern.

There isn’t taking an ounce away from the overall appeal of the F-Type though. It’s epic. British items aren’t of the sterling quality they once used to be, and the F-Type is a rare exception. They should put this one in a museum. It’s going down in history as an all time great.

The Jaguar F-Type, thus, is a leggy, pouty, desire invoking supermodel – revered and lusted for by one and all. And then there are those vertical shark fins flanking the snout – adding some oddity, an oriental garnish, if you will, to a thoroughbred western beauty. She’s a sin-inducing siren which still somehow has an ethereal aura around her. The F-Type is that sort of a thing.

The way she croons

A near-vertical fall from the 456 feet tall Kingda Ka roller coaster can be quite a gut-wrenching experience for some, but it’s not even in the same zip code as skydiving when it comes to nerve tingling thrills. It’s just not dangerous enough. The floral, citrus, light notes of a Speyside malt may get a scotch beginner completely smitten. For a seasoned, manned-up connoisseur, however, nothing less than a heavily peated single malt from the Islay region would work. The Speyside whiskeys are just not smoky enough. The Japanese pugilists may often be known for their hand-speed and agility, but they have never created a name for themselves in professional boxing. They’re just not big, strong and powerful enough.

As journalists, we often try to eulogize modern sports cars for the aural pleasures they afford. And we increasingly struggle with every word we write. Modern sports cars are just not loud enough. The F-type, and thank god for it, is!

Let us, then, credit, congratulate and felicitate the sound engineers at Jaguar for creating the acoustic enchantment the F-Type is. For the gagged world of sports cars we live in, the F-Type is an automotive equivalent of Mozart’s no. 31 in D major. The F-type’s exhaust would take you back to the 70’s, to a world where Freddie Mercury was alive and kicking some competent behinds. The F-Type is Black Sabbath’s heavy metal, turned up to full volume in a packed live concert.

The V8 S, the most fire-spewing, incensed, rambunctious variety of the F-Type variant troika that Jaguar has to offer was sampled by us. And should you listen to it as it spits the fire out! As all of those eight massive cylinders, displacing 5 big liters of volume make a deluge of burnt and unburnt vapours gush out, a quartet of big, round, chrome tipped exhausts pulsates and felicitates the phenomenon with a thunderous applause.

The sound of the F-type V8 S, as you listen to it from the outside is the sound of cataclysm. Picture a glum, ominous day with dark clouds looming large. Eerie, muggy, airless, quiet – the scene from out of your window stifles you in the soul. And then you hear a loud, startling, almost deafening thunder. Deep, booming, menacing – it’s the kind of sound that puts the fear of god in the minds and hearts of mortals. The F-Type’s exhaust is a miniaturized form of that shuddersome sound.

And then, just the way you have a lasting rumble following a big thunder, you get to hear the burnt and unburnt gases break out in desperation with a snap, crackle and pop. It’s like a bunch of crackers bursting every time you lift off after a thrust, to celebrate the delights you just treated your every sense with.

The exhaust sounds raucous, dry and snarly when you turn the revs up on a standstill. The real delight of the F-Type’s auditory intoxication is on the move. With part throttle, and part lift-off, the distinct sports-car burble can be heard loud and clear.

In a world where doctored engine sounds are relayed to the occupants via electronic means, the F-Type is a militant relief.  It thumbs all those who think that someone ever could get perturbed by the divine sound of a big V8’s exhaust in their nose. When it croons, the F-Type reminds us about all that’s good and desirable about a sports car’s sound. It reinstates our belief that the quintessential sports car isn’t dead, yet. The F-type is all muscle, all manhood when it comes to its deep baritone. It thumps its bare, hairy chest and dares the legislators to sue it, much to the classicist’s delight. Remember one King-Kong challenging the might of the civilized world from atop an American skyscraper? The F-Type is that sort of a thing.

Her heart and soul >>>