F-PACE to add petrol four and RWD

Jaguar's F-PACE SUV is set to add four-cylinder petrol engines and potentially rear-wheel drive – potentially plunging its starting price into the $60K bracket.

The F-PACE launched as an AWD-only range in Australia in 2016 with the $74,340 Ingenium turbo-diesel four-cylinder 20d as its entry-level model. It's now establishing itself as Jaguar's most popular model Down Under.

But the iconic British brand has announced the global roll-out of the new Ingenium turbo-petrol four-cylinder engine into not only the XE and XF but the F-PACE as well.

While the updates will debut mid-2017, there has been no detail issued on how they apply locally to the Jaguar soft-roader.

However, Jaguar Land Rover Australia managing director Matthew Wiesner wasn't shying away from the proposition that adding petrol four-cylinder and rear-wheel drive to expand the range and lower the entry price-point makes sense.

The cheapest petrol F-PACE is the $83,745 supercharged V6 35t Prestige. F-Pace has not been available previously with four-cylinder petrol engines but rear-wheel drive has been offered overseas since launch.

"We will keep reviewing it, but it's important we expand in all the relevant spaces from a Jaguar point of view," Wiesner told motoring.com.au.

"I think we are okay with six-cylinders -- that seems to be apparent with how F-PACE has performed. But I think there is certainly more opportunity in the four-cylinder space. As long as it's very much a Jaguar in the way it performs and if it was just rear-wheel drive that might work quite nicely."

Taking on the competition
In Australia among its key rivals a rear-wheel drive F-PACE would set a precedent as there is currently no two-wheel drive Audi Q5, BMW X3 or Mercedes-Benz GLC. Lexus, however, offers a front-drive RX model(s) as does the F-PACE's Evoque 'stablemate'.

"If it [rear-wheel drive] gives us an opportunity to make sure F-PACE is right in there, then why wouldn't you?" Wiesner added.

And a starting price with a six at the start of it?

"There would be a distinct possibility," he said.

F-Pace has been the top-selling Jaguar in Australia every month since last August, topping the XE compact saloon in the process. XE still managed to hold on to be top-selling Jaguar in 2016, but F-PACE sold 150 examples to XE's 93 in January to sit atop the pile.

In 2016 Jaguar recorded an “unsustainable” 132.8 per cent sales growth to record 3008 sales. More F-PACE variants thrown into the white-hot SUV market can only help keep the brand growing.

Jaguar's sales growth is likely to be fuelled by SUVs going forward as spy pictures of the smaller E-Pace under development are now appearing regularly. The all-electric I-Pace SUV is also on the agenda for Australia in 2018.

Wiesner said he had no qualms about more Jaguar SUVs entering the showroom.

"The traditionalist probably would say 'yes', the more pragmatic look at it through a commercial view of the world and say 'it is what it is and the market will decide'.

"There isn't a car company around that still takes the approach 'we will build cars for you and we will tell you what you are going to drive'. That is insane. But cars like F-TYPE, XE and even XJ still have a role to tell a Jaguar story."

On the prospect of smaller Jaguar SUV Wiesner said:

"We are now seeing the opportunity for Jaguar that XE and F-PACE are delivering with a younger market. Certainly with F-PACE in particular, [it's] far more attractive to female buyers as well.

"For Jaguar to take the next step, we need more younger buyers and primarily more females considering the brand. We have to make sure we have the right product stable to do it.

"Wagon-style and hatchback-style products seem to be on-tune, so let's watch this space," Wiesner said.