New Jaguar F-Pace SUV, the production version of the C-X17 SUV concept, will go on sale in 2016 priced from £30,000.
Jaguar has confirmed that its first SUV will enter production in 2016 and eshew Jaguar’s normal badging structure with a radical new name – Jaguar F-Pace.
Prices are expected to open around the £30,000 mark putting the F-Pace up against the Audi Q5 and BMW X3 as well as its stablemates the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque.
Jaguar is referring to the new F-Pace model as a “performance crossover” as opposed to an SUV . The name is designed to align it with the F-Type sports car and distance it from those more rugged products offered by sister-company Land Rover.
Full technical details for the Jaguat F-Pace won’t be released until later this year, but certain specifications have been confirmed. It will be available with a five-seater layout only, and assuming it sticks closely to the concept’s 4,718mm length, will be a few centimetres bigger than its main rivals – the Audi Q5 and BMW X3. For that reason, Jaguar claims it will have class-leading interior space as well as a “beautiful design, precise handling, a supple ride, luxurious interior finishes and cutting-edge technology.”
The F-Pace will be based on the same aluminium-intensive iq[AL] platform as the new XE saloon and built in the same revamped Solihull plant in Birmingham. The similarities between the SUV and saloon will extend to the suspension geometry (the XE uses advanced double wishbones at the front and a multi-link setup at the rear), the interior switchgear and InControl infotainment system and the engine line-up. The four-wheel drive system will be governed by Jag’s All-Surface Progress Control technology to maximise grip in all road conditions.
Jaguar F-Pace: engine range and price
Expect 2.0-litre turbodiesel and 2.0 turbocharged petrol engines – both from the new Ingenium engine family – to be offered in various states of tune, along with a supercharged 3.0-litre V6 at the top of the range. A more-powerful supercharged V8 model could come later in the lifecycle to power an F-Pace R performance model. Prices are likely to start from around £30,000.
