Every buyer must check Jaguar F-TYPE car history before getting a car loan or credit. But it鈥檚 not just the fancy tech under the hood that connects car and driver to the road. Quickshift might sound gimmicky but while driving in fully automatic mode, the system is constantly calculating, mapping, and monitoring acceleration based on a number of driver metrics such as acceleration, cornering forces, throttle position, gear selection and brake pedal activity. Power is sent to the rear wheels via an eight-speed 鈥楺uickshift鈥?automatic transmission. Dynamic Mode also exposes the F-Types claws by tightening up transmission shifts and steering output. Dynamic Mode works in concert with the F-Type鈥檚 Configurable Dynamics display, which maps out the systems various functions on the car鈥檚 8-inch LCD touchscreen and lets drivers fully customize the car鈥檚 response to their taste. The V8 S鈥檚 active system works in conjunction with the car鈥檚 ABS, stability, and traction systems, ensuring torque is piped to the wheels with the most available grip. The limited-slip system is present in the F-Type S while the active version is employed in the top-line V8 S. Limited-slip differentials send rotational power (grip) to both wheels when one is raised off the ground or experiencing slippage.
V8 version has a 51:49 weight distribution and doesn鈥檛 sashay in and out of corners quite as well as the V6. In fact, the weight of the steering, which would be a niggle to few, liberates you to dive into sharp corners at greater speeds with precision and confidence. Jaguar鈥檚 engineers even managed to achieve a perfect 50/50 weight distribution in the V6 and it proved a smidge more refined than its V8-powered counterpart. So for example, you can can tweak throttle response, making the car more or less sensitive when stepping on the gas and adjust steering weight, giving the F-Type鈥檚 steering a meatier weight and feel. Tactile zinc-alloy shift paddles provide heightened driver engagement when making manual gear changes. It has a (human) drive mode, too, for the driver to experience the 300-mile range roadster with instant torque. Digital Trends鈥?contributor Nick Jaynes covered the recent introduction of Jaguar鈥檚 new F-Type roadster from Spain but after driving it on American roads closer to our home base here in the Northwest, I wanted to take a loser look at what keeps Jag鈥檚 newest cat – and it鈥檚 first true sports car in many a year – glued to the pavement.
Sports car traditionalists will invariably gripe at the omission of a clutch and stick shift option but the Quickshift setup, with its eight closely spaces ratios, allows for quicker, more accurate shifts, meaning a true manual option really wasn鈥檛 missed. However, our drive time through Washington鈥檚 Mount Rainier National Park and later on the Ridge Motorsports Park shows that Jaguar isn鈥檛 messing around as it re-enters the sports car market. Indeed, Jaguar says the entire drivetrain of the F-Type has been optimized for instantaneous torque delivery, and it shows. The active system in the V8 S takes this a step further by providing an electronically controlled differential that uses a multi-plate clutch to transfer torque to the wheel with the most grip. Wheel speed data is monitored and calculated to ensure the appropriate amount of power is supplied for low-speed maneuvers. These sensors monitor steering angle and rate, wheel speed , yaw/ g-force, brake pressure, even the position of the F-Type鈥檚 accelerator in order to sharpen driving characteristics in a number of ways. Jaguar also bills its suspension system as 鈥楢daptive Dynamics,鈥?which modifies a number of handling characteristics on the fly aimed at tailoring the car to your current driving conditions.
Stop-and-go city driving results in some additional cush for bumps and overall comfort while the suspension stiffens up on twisting back roads and hard cornering. The F-Type鈥檚 steering also stiffens up, resulting in a more connected feel to the road. Toggle it on and that input becomes much more sensitive, resulting in faster, more direct acceleration required for a more sporting pace. In regards to the former, the F-Type鈥檚 transmission analyzes steering input and g-force, and will actually hold lower gears and upshifts, or delay them altogether, to ensure maximum power and acceleration out of a corner. What that translates to is a car that knows when to blip the throttle to match engine revs, provides rapid downshifts during hard braking and knows when to hold a higher gear – such as during aggressive cornering – so that the optimal gear is selected when powering out of the corner. Variables like speed, steering and body movements are all analyzed on the fly, which in turn tweaks the suspension response and damping to match driving conditions. Like the QuickShift transmission system, Adaptive Dynamics accomplishes its task by continuously monitoring vehicle metrics like speed, steering, and body movements through the car鈥檚 onboard computer, which can calculate appropriate suspension response up to 500 times per second.