2017 Jaguar F - PACE Diesel

Jaguar is roughly a decade late to the compact-luxury SUV segment, so it’s no wonder company officials sound a bit reluctant about this whole crossover movement. They want to keep steering the discussion of the company’s first SUV, the F-Pace, back to its sporting credentials and its somewhat tenuous visual and mechanical—and nomenclatural!—connections to the F-type sports car. It certainly looks athletic, as if the front and rear of a more traditional SUV form have been pinched and yanked into the F-Pace’s taut, muscular shape and classic rear-drive proportions. Jaguar designers should be celebrated for their curation of the F-Pace’s details, which buck the current trend toward overdesign—have you seen the new Lexus RX? They really knew when to lift their pens. But Wait, It’s Practical But that’s not the case; the thing we find so compelling about the F-Pace is that its dynamic excellence is augmented with serious practicality. For instance, its back seat easily accommodates occupants more than six feet tall, with excellent rear legroom, ample foot space under the front seats, and, considering the standard panoramic sunroof, surprisingly reasonable headroom. However, a center rear occupant will have to straddle the hump in the floor that’s there to accommodate the driveshaft, and we wish the seatback cushions were less firm. The F-Pace’s generous cargo hold is nearly twice as spacious as that of the Porsche Macan. The F-Pace is no dynamic slouch; it offers exceptionally sharp on-center steering precision and great turn-in response. Steering effort is on the light side, but that likely helps impart the feel of frisky eagerness. (Selecting Dynamic mode adds additional heft.) Also helping is a claimed 50/50 weight distribution and an all-wheel-drive system that stays rear-drive until torque is needed at the front axle. Body control is excellent, and the structure and steering column feel extraordinarily rigid. Even the ride comfort on the upsized 22-inch wheels is better than expected. Helping the ride cause is Jaguar’s stubborn refusal to employ run-flat tires, which we salute, and this means—hooray!—the inclusion of a compact spare tire, an increasingly rare feature. Sure, turn off the stability control and hurl it into a corner like, say, an F-type, and the jig will be up, as it starts to spin the inside tires due to the lack of limited-slip differentials and single-wheel brake applications. But let’s not get too crazy; the F-Pace is a crossover, after all. Most F-Pace variants will be available in four trim levels: base, Premium, Prestige, and R-Sport. All the vehicles we drove had the $1000 Adaptive Dynamics package, available on the Prestige and R-Sport, which includes electronically adaptive Bilstein shocks. This package usefully lets you customize the F-Pace’s Dynamic mode according to driver preference from a menu of separate engine, transmission, steering, and suspension settings. The ride is seriously tied down in Dynamic mode, so the Normal setting is the way to go when traveling over any kind of cratered surface, as it allows the suspension to move through more of its travel. One caveat: The F-Paces we flung around the mountainous roads of Montenegro all wore Pirelli P Zero summer tires. However, P Zeros will be available in the U.S. only on the 275 units of the highly optioned $70,695 First Edition models. After that, all F-Paces will wear all-season rubber, which certainly will erode some of the dynamic excellence we experienced. We did have a couple of complaints. Brake response is soft and unsatisfying, giving a disconcerting sense that the brake pedal is sinking closer to the floor than expected. And throttle response in Dynamic mode is far too jumpy at high rpm; toeing back into the throttle midcorner often caused such a strong surge that it hurled the F-Pace headlong into an intervention from the stability control. There’s a reason the Chevrolet Corvette makes the throttle significantly less responsive in its Track mode. Subscribe☛    • 2017 Jaguar F - PACE Diesel   Like & share Facebook:  / 1406320756073687