The motoring press has decreed that with the addition of a solid roof, the handling characteristics of the Jaguar F-Type are noticeably better than what was observed when driving the drop top. In Coupe form, and R spec, it’s seriously fast by all accounts, even on paper, however, one can imagine how much faster it would be if it didn’t weigh almost 1.7 tons (3,750 lbs).
Australia’s Motoring says that Jaguar is already considering a Club Sport version of the car, one that would shave off some 200 kg (440 lbs), with obvious benefits. Its insider sources also suggested that the car’s benchmark sprint time could be slashed down to 3.5 seconds, and that work on this project is actually further along than we imagined.
There’s also the problem of justifying the creation of such a unique, niche model, but according to the F-Type Program Director, Russ Varney, they would need to sell 500 per year to justify its creation.
He explained that “it depends on how far you want to take a lightweight F-TYPE. I would like to take it to the point where it’s still this car and not a different car. I wouldn’t want to turn it into something like an Elise.”
Moreover, it’s not entirely clear whether or not this lightened F-Type would use the heavy V8 engine of the R model, and the supercharged V6 unit that’s arguably more fitting for this E-Type successor could be tuned to produce more power and also preserve the six-pot engine note; swapping out the bigger engine for the smaller one saves 71 kg (156 lbs) right away.
By Andrei Nedelea
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