He was one of the protagonists of our special Christmas video, but will the Jaguar F-Type Coupé with only four cylinders makes sense?
Let's see. It's true that this is the most affordable way to acquire the flashy British coupe, however, the 300 hp taken from the common 2.0 l four-cylinder engine is far from being benchmark or… exotic.
After all, we find identical engines of equal or more power in models like the Renault Mégane RS Trophy, the new Volkswagen Golf R or even the much more powerful Mercedes-AMG A 45 S, with 421 hp — will the mechanical appeal of these four cylinders match the appeal of this beautiful coupé?
There's only one way to discover it and I'll give the floor to Diogo Teixeira who put the Jaguar F-Type Coupé with four cylinders and 300 hp, in the exclusive First Edition version, to the test on the roads of Serra da Estrelas:
What more engines are there?
If the F-Type's 300 hp and four-cylinder engines know you a little while ago and you think that under the hood of the slender coupé it must “inhabit” a more “nobler” engine, the only option is to equip it with a V8 engine.
Upon renovation, the F-Type said goodbye to the V6 (Supercharged) in Europe, becoming only available with the four cylinders we are testing and with the thundering V8 with 5.0 l of capacity and two power levels.
The less powerful and also unprecedented variant of the V8 presents itself with 450 hp and 580 Nm that can be sent only to the rear wheels or to all four. The more explosive version of the V8 offers 575 hp and 700 Nm and is only available with all-wheel drive.
As for prices, the 450 hp rear-wheel-drive variant starts at 136,204 euros (all-wheel drive starts at 144,281 euros) while the all-powerful 575 hp variant costs 170,975 euros. The more affordable four-cylinder F-Type starts at €95,229.
That said, it's a matter of doing math. Not only the price, whose difference is considerable, but also the substantial additional costs that more cylinders and power entail (taxes, maintenance and fuel).