Autocar 25/04/2018

CHANGE CREATES OPPORTUNITY. And with the car industry undergoing massive changes due to technology, electrification and autonomy, there are massive opportunities for bold start-ups to disrupt the established order. ‘Start-up’ is as much a mentality as a description of a company’s age: it’s a desire, like Silicon Valley’s tech firms, to shake up and disrupt, breaking rules and challenging the way things are done. Car industry start-ups are coming from everywhere. There are the Silicon Valley ones (led, of course, by the brilliantly disruptive Tesla), well-funded Chinese companies riding that country’s huge electrification push – think Byton (page 16) and Geely’s Lynk&Co – and the Indian-funded Pininfarina (page 48). Heck, even Aston’s revived Lagonda brand is conceived, according to its strategy boss, like “a 113-year-old start-up”. This mentality is a breath of fresh…

The latest XK project is believed to be entirely new and unlikely to be launched until at least 2021 Plans to relaunch the Jaguar XK are gathering momentum, with the firm’s head of product strategy confirming that it is working on a proposal for a whole family of sports cars. Hanno Kirner, who oversees product strategy for the next decade at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), told Autocar the company remains committed to the sports car segment, despite the Jaguar E-Pace and F-Pace SUVs dominating the firm’s sales. In 2017, the F-Pace accounted for two-fifths of all Jaguar sales. The XK was discontinued in 2014. “The F-Type has been a huge success,” he said. “We love sports cars – and I use the plural quite deliberately. Whether that is delivered by a body variant…

The XK badge is significant for Jaguar and is considered to mark the start of its sports car story with the arrival in 1948 of the XK120 two-seat roadster. The life of the XK120, XK140 and XK150 spanned 12 years and incorporated roadster, fixed-head coupé and drop-head coupé versions, before being replaced by the E-Type in 1961. The original XKs used a 3.4-litre six-cylinder engine with 180bhp and 203lb ft. In October 1952, Autocar road tested the XK120 coupé and said its 121mph best speed “makes the XK coupé’s road test performance just about the fastest to be recorded”. The author added that on Alpine roads and passes, “the car is completely at home and responds to every wish of the driver. There are very few cars indeed that can pass…

By these latest signs, it may already be too late for Jaguar to develop an all-new sports car platform on which to base the next F-Type and the XK replacement. That’s an opportunity missed, since sales volumes of these cars are so small that no single new model is likely to justify a big investment all on its own. Still, while adapting an already adapted architecture that, at least in part, has been in service since 2005 may not sound ideal, an inherited all-aluminium monocoque needn’t necessarily be a handicap for the XK. It’ll depend how thoroughly – and cleverly – Jaguar can update it. The firm could certainly do with a platform that might save a few kilos for the car, given the likely move away from V8 to in-line fourand…

Enthusiast drivers are going to have more choice than ever before as autonomous technology is developed because car firms will be able to increasingly polarise their line-ups, according to Hanno Kirner, Jaguar Land Rover’s head of product strategy. Kirner believes that while many people will be happy to use autonomous cars day to day – as taxis and shared or owned vehicles – many keen drivers will want to have vehicles they can get behind the wheel of for fun. “Whether it is SVO [JLR’s performance arm] recreating classics to modern standards or creating track-day specials, I think it will grow as autonomous driving becomes a regular part of lives,” he said. “I don’t for one second think we’ll see a generation appear with no interest in cars. Driving enthusiasts will still…

A high-performance Jaguar I-Pace SVR – and any other performance electric cars – would not be engineered for their 0-60mph performance alone, according to high-ranking Jaguar Land Rover officials. With rumours of an I-Pace SVR – and even a special limited-edition ‘Project’ car – gathering momentum, product planning boss Hanno Kirner conceded that teams within the firm had already worked through potential credentials for such cars. “We have asked ourselves how you would ‘SVR’ an electric car,” said Kirner. “Yes, we can make it do 0-60mph in 1.8sec. It’s a good headline, but once you’ve done it once or twice, and lost your eyes in the back of their sockets, you might not want to do it again.” Kirner highlighted the I-Pace’s 50/50 weight distribution and dynamic set-up in standard form as indications…