Not just a pretty face: Jaguar’s new F-Pace

Tech-Tuesday: Jaguar’s new F-Pace.

The Jaguar F-Type is a car that many people love, from its looks, to its appeal and its sweet sounding engines. The problem with a car like the Jaguar F-Type is that it can be a tad limiting if you little creatures called children. These cute creatures tend to not allow many to enjoy certain luxuries such as sports cars. So Jaguar have decided to create a solution to those seeking the class and sophistication of an F-Type but require some rear seats and a raised suspension. Enter the new F-Pace, a beautiful 4×4 by Jaguar. Not only does this car look very good, it has some brains on it too.

How it’s made:

The Jaguar F-Pace is built using Lightweight Aluminium Architecture, this ensures that the car is as light as is can be so it can sting like a bee. How bad is its sting? 280 kW produced by a V6 Supercharged engine makes the F-Pace sprint to 100 km/h in 5.5 seconds. Not bad for a 4×4 right? The fact that Aluminium is used means that the F-Pace is quite rigid too, making it more dynamic in its handling characteristics.

Technology:

Like most modern day premium cars, the new F-Pace will allow drivers to change the responsiveness of the car and the feel of the steering wheel through the Configurable Dynamics system. Damping is also adjustable, allowing the car to stiffen up or soften up depending of the situation. A notable dynamic feature of the new F-Pace is that it uses the same AWD system found in the F-Type AWD. This system is bias to the rear wheels but will send torque to the front wheels when needed. This is great as it is a fact that rear wheel drive cars feature a distinct driving feel on and off the limit so the F-Pace enjoys the best of both worlds.

Like the Discovery Sport Dynamic featured recently, the F-Pace will make use of All Surface Progress Control (ASPC). This feature basically works as off-road cruise control which allows the car to modulate throttle and breaking on its own from a speed of  3.6 km/h to 30 km/h. The car will also feature a heads up display unit and a great infotainment system similar to that found in current Jaguars. The coolest technology in the new F- Pace will be the Activity Key, a James Bond type of device that allows you to control the car via a wristband. Yes a wristband! Let’s say you’re going mountain biking or surfing, you can lock the normal key in the car and it will disable it allowing the wristband to be the main key. Once you’re back from your activity, simply place the wristband close to the “J” in a Jaguar and voila the car will unlock. If you don’t think that’s cool then you need to watch more science fiction movies.

Verdict:

The new Jaguar F-Pace looks like an F-Type, has the same engine as an F-Type, has a lot of great features and can seat five people comfortably. All this in an AWD 4×4 package. Need we say more? Happy Technology Tuesday Motorists.