AJaguar 2+2 GT is back on the cards, and would sit alongside the brand’s next-generation F-Type if it makes production.
Jaguar design director Ian Callum told Autocar at Pebble Beach: ?I want a two-seater [the F-Type] and a 2 2. We?Re operating on some thing now. There?S nothing permitted, but we instigate in layout ? That?S what we do.?
Discussing the idea further at the Frankfurt motor show last month, Callum said he believed Jaguar could add an XK-like model to its range and would “like to get back to both”. To that end, Callum has some “quite different ideas... as to how to carry four people quickly around the world” with their luggage, suggesting if the XK were reborn, it would be as a true four-seat sporting grand tourer. The XK was discontinued in 2014 due to flagging sales. “The XK being dropped was much to my frustration,” said Callum.
If a new 2 2 gets the pass-ahead, it'd be constructed along the next-generation F-Type at Jaguar?S Castle Bromwich plant. The vehicle could use an updated version of the F-Type platform (which itself is a modified model of the original XK platform) and undertake Jaguar?S Ingenium engines. These could include the access-stage four-cylinder 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol unit with 296bhp and the imminent directly-six powertrains in various states of music. The latter engines would replace the Ford-sourced V6s, as determined inside the contemporary F-Type.
The model, which would not be introduced until at least 2021, would get hot iterations including an R and the range- topping SVR. The F-Type SVR uses a 5.0-litre V8 with 572bhp that hits 0-62mph in 3.7sec, although the extra weight of a four-seater would increase this time slightly.
Development of the second one- generation F-Type, anticipated in 2019, is likewise below manner, showed Callum.
He defined the sports automobile marketplace as ?A fickle one? And stated: ?On the complete, market share is losing all of the time. That?S why we keep to the excessive end with our sports automobiles.?
When asked whether Jaguar would consider a partnership to make its sports cars more viable, in a similar way to BMW and Toyota with its respective Z4 and Supra models, Callum said: “I had a few ideas about partnerships but they didn’t happen. Partnerships are the answer, I think. But we will be doing our own thing with the F-Type.”
Callum added that the F-Type is fundamental to Jaguar. “It’s the heart of the brand. I regularly have the conversation about how Jag needs a sports car. I mean, if it wasn’t making money – and it does, by the way – it’s what it’s doing for the brand that matters. It’s aspirational.” While Callum’s hopes for an XK replacement continue, Jaguar did in fact design a next-generation XK that would be on sale now – had the success of the F-Type in the eyes of the marketing department not killed it.
Callum showed that having each an F-Type and an XK in the Jaguar variety was ?Continually the plan?. He delivered: ?The F-Type was by no means supposed to kill the XK.?
However, with layout paintings at the XK whole, and the F-Type released in 2013, Callum said entrepreneurs at Jaguar believed the XK turned into no longer wanted. The F-Type, they thought, crammed the function of a sporting, overall performance Jaguar inside the range and engineering paintings on the XK never commenced.
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