Jaguar F-Type to copy 911 range

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Porsche will be blushing like a bride as Jaguar looks set to mimic the 911 line-up with yearly updates.

At present only the F-Type cabriolet has been confirmed, but Jaguar's Global Brand Manager Adrian Hallmark told motoring.com.au at the New York Motor Show that coupe, targa, wide-body, high performance and even AWD versions of the new sports car are in the offing.

"The potential for this car is massive," he said of the F-Type, a rear-wheel drive, front-engined, two-seat roadster. The car is due to be launched in Australia mid-year for around $150,000 after it makes a surprise static appearance on March 30 at the Jaguar National Rally in Wollongong alongside the C- D- and famous E-Type Jags.

"We've kicked off with the cabriolet, we've kicked off with two core engines with three power levels, but over the next seven years I promise you we'll innovate like crazy and we'll be active in the product lifecycle of that vehicle from day one until we change to the next model.

"We've not confirmed exactly which body styles but doing a coupe is so simple, a targa is simple as well. Then of course we'll always keep the prototype body tools so if we want to make the wheel arches a little bit wider and put holes in certain places, we can do that at a low volume at a relatively low cost," explained Hallmark.

As we've already reported, Jaguar Land Rover's performance arm, ETO, is considering an 'extreme' F-Type and though Hallmark admits the British company will ape the Porsche 911 life-cycle, is the F-Type Jaguar's answer to the 911?

"I was going to answer that instinctively, good job I didn't: It's our F-Type. I worked for Porsche for 10 years, so I've got a certain affinity to the brand but I've no desire to create a Porsche at Jaguar.

"Our desire is to create Jaguars at Jaguar.

"But the parallel from Porsche is their almost paranoid obsession with life-cycle management – which I grew up with – and I think it's exactly the way to go with a sports car," opined Hallmark.

Hallmark says the best approach is to offer a new F-Type variant every year – think coupe in 2014, then targa in 2015, then a high performance GT3-like model in 2016, and so on until 2020 when the car will be replaced.

"Every year we've got to do something that gives someone that's already bought an F-Type a reason to come and look again. Even if they don’t need one. And if you can get people to change every 18 months you can get two sales for every one customer," said Hallmark.

Jaguar clearly wants to play ball with Porsche in almost every variant, especially high-output models.

"Clearly there's way more capacity in the engines we already have. So as you can imagine F-Type has way more potential for performance," he noted.

"I won't today confirm if and when we would do an F-type R, but I'd be surprised if we didnt."

Such a high-output vehicle would need to employ an all-wheel drive powertrain to maintain control, and it's an idea Jaguar is not averse to.

"When you get over 500hp [367kW], getting more power to the engine is not a problem," said Hallmark. "You can put a different gear on the supercharger, you can even turbocharge and go crazy if you want to. But getting the power down in a rear wheel drive is the real issue, and Australians must know exactly what I'm talking about with big lumpy V8s and lively back ends.

"We want to build a modern intelligent sports car, it's not just going to be brute force. It's got to be manageable, absolutely rewarding, take you to your limits but never punish you when you get there, so all-wheel drive is absolutely key to managing much higher power than 500hp if you want to do it in a really controlled manner.

"I think for the real high performance cars of the future, AWD is important. We don’t have a date for that yet but we're considering it."

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