We all want SUVs. They make us feel safe in an uncertain time. They make us feel rugged. They make us feel a little taller in traffic. Whatever the reason for our obsession, auto makers are clamouring to give us more of what we want, even when it doesn’t make sense.
Who’d have thought Bentley would ever sell a sport utility vehicle? Or Porsche or Lamborghini or Rolls-Royce? There’s a year-long wait-list for the Bentley. It’s like the Wild West – a new frontier has opened up, and everyone wants a piece.
Which brings us to Montenegro, to an island just off the coast, a place built in the 15th century that became a safe haven for pirates who pillaged the Mediterranean. Jaguar has chosen to launch its first SUV here because this young country is beautiful, but also because it’s home to narrow mountain roads which rank among the most dangerous in the world. If the SUV can comfortably handle these roads, a traffic jam in Toronto won’t present any problem.
The new Jaguar SUV is called the F-Pace and it starts at a competitive $49,900. It has an awkward name with a tenuous connection to the company’s history, but it’s likely to change Jaguar’s fortunes.
Wolfgang Hoffmann, the new president of Jaguar Land Rover Canada, couldn’t have arrived at a better time. “This is a company just now taking off,” he said. With money from Indian auto maker Tata Motors, JLR will soon have a small but complete lineup of new vehicles, all of which we’ve found to be good.
Hoffmann predicts that, with the new XE – a compact luxury sedan – and the F-Pace, Jaguar Canada is poised to double its annual sales.
Most SUVs look like a variation on the theme of lima-bean, but this one looks more like a sporty turtle. Leave it to Jaguar to make an SUV look desirable.
This is, after all, the company that gave us the E-Type in the early 1960s, and the first XJ sedan, a design so good, it was hardly changed in 40 years.
“I can’t remember the last time, as a Jaguar designer, we can say we’ve got best-in-class cargo space,” said Wayne Burgess, the part-time rock guitarist who runs Jaguar’s design studio. The sedans and sports cars that make up the rest of the brand’s five-vehicle lineup all happily trade a bit of practicality for style, but not this one.
The F-Pace is low enough it’s easy to get into, but high enough it feels like an SUV rather than the luxury sedan on which it’s actually based. There’s a patch of houndstooth trim on the door.
On the sat-nav screen, the road ahead looks like it was laid out by Zoro. On one side, broken concrete blocks are all that separate the road from a vertiginous drop, on the other is jagged rock. Tour buses with steely-eyed drivers who apparently have nothing to lose are a constant threat, charging up the road like it’s a one-way. But the F-Pace nearly matches the agility of Jaguar’s sedans, helping us avoid certain death with relative ease. The lightweight aluminum body helps. So does the optional adaptive suspension, which gives a firm ride without being harsh. A word of advice though: The 22-inch wheels look amazing, but the 20s provide a noticeably smoother ride.
The F-Pace is full of cutting-edge technology, such as the wearable Activity Key that looks like a FitBit. Picture this: You’re a chill surfer who, after a day of shredding the gnar and catching monster swells, comes back to her F-Pace and unlocks the trunk with the waterproof Activity Key on her wrist. Or, more realistically, you’ve got your hands full of grocery bags and kid paraphernalia, and you just tap your wrist on the trunk to unlock the car. Neat! But wait just a second: Jaguar’s sister company, Land Rover, with which it shares dealership space, makes nothing but SUVs. Go into a Jaguar showroom, look to your left and there are a half-dozen Land Rovers and Range Rovers to choose from. Why did Jaguar need to build one? Because dealers felt they could sell them, because this is the Wild West and it doesn’t matter if a product makes sense, only if it will sell.
“People have been driving the three German cars now for a long, long time,” said Hoffmann, who was previously the CEO of Audi Canada. “[BMW, Audi and Mercedes] had great success in Canada. They grew dramatically. They doubled their sales volume, all of them, over the last five years and now it’s Jaguar’s time, I believe, to give people an alternative. It’s getting to be almost too much vanilla.”
Premium cars account for only 9 per cent or 10 per cent of annual vehicle sales in Canada, he said. “If you look at markets like Germany and U.S., it’s much higher. In the U.S., you’re talking about 12 or 13 per cent now. In Germany, even 30 per cent are premium cars. So Canada is a little bit behind, but that’s good because for me, that’s just potential.”
For $49,900, you get an F-Pace with fabric seats, panoramic glass roof and a four-cylinder turbo-diesel with 180 horsepower. Moving up the ladder, there are two versions with Jaguar’s supercharged V-6 gasoline engine: 340 horsepower for $53,900 or 380 horsepower for $66,400. The fuel-efficient diesel responds a little sluggishly but should be enough motor for most. The 340-horsepower engine will be less efficient but sounds more like a Jaguar should. They’ll start to arrive in Canada later in spring.
As long as the SUV market continues to grow – and Jaguar predicts it will, up 50 per cent by 2020 – the Jaguar F-Pace and Land Rover SUVs should be able to co-exist happily ever after.
Yes, Jaguar’s first SUV is going to be a hit – even with that strange name – not only because it would be hard for it to miss, but because it’s also good.
The writer was a guest of the auto maker. Content was not subject to approval.
Like us on Facebook
Add us to your circles
Sign up for our weekly newsletter.