A panoramic roof and deep seats wrapped in soft black leather almost make it feel like a grand tourer, even for drivers of advanced height. If the views are lovely, so too is the car’s interior. Jaguar’s internal-combustion sports-car bookends, the XK120 and F-Type R75. It might be lazy to say so, but I can’t recall feeling this alive in a car that runs on batteries. The rev flare-as you push up to 6,000 rpm, then 7,000 rpm, and then flick it from second gear into third-is just glorious. Switching into manual and pumping the paddle shifters, I hear the car crackle and pop, raging like a bear that missed out on supper. Not like you do in an electric car, where all there is to notice is the speed and the wind. Out on the road, Gaudí’s city a pinprick in the rearview mirror, it’s not the speed you notice, even though the R75 will hit 60 mph from a standing start in 3.5 seconds. From the moment the R75 fires up its oversexed V-8, it gurgles with latent aggression, sending a surge of excitement through my soul and into my, well, general thigh area. North toward the Pyrenees I’ll go, through towering gorges and up precipitous mountain passes, stopping to refill the reserves with gasoline and espresso. The writer soaking up the F-Type R75 Coupe’s 567 hp soundtrack. But instead, Jaguar has plotted a two-day route that, on a map, looks like it was drawn by someone asked to hold a pen for the first time. Picking up the F-Type R75 at the Barcelona airport, I know that, in a straight line, I could make it to the northern coast in six hours. Ahead lies almost 500 miles of Spanish tarmac, the road to the beaches of San Sebastián, and a car begging to be remembered. Yet if that’s a bleak backdrop, the view before me is more cheerful. ![]() Jaguar’s sales have been sluggish for years, and the automaker has decided that the only way to dig itself out is through lithium mines. Its electrified fleet is due in 2025, along with a total brand reboot about which we know next to nothing, save that average on-the-road prices are set to enter six-figure territory. We’ve known for years that the automotive sector would be sending gas-guzzling cars the way of cigarettes and sunbeds, but even so, Jaguar’s clean-sheet strategy feels all too soon. We Drove 8 of Lamborghini’s Most Important Cars in a Single Day. Mercedes-Benz Asked Its Formula 1 Team to Help Make More Efficient EVsĪ Legendary 1969 Greenwood Chevrolet Corvette Race Car Can Now Be Yours
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