Choose an SUV from a German car maker and there’s a good chance it’ll be underpinned by a platform or architecture shared with another SUV from a related German car maker.
Jaguar has resisted that temptation; JLR makes plenty of 4x4s, but to stick a leaping cat on one might have undermined a Land Rover or Range Rover and not given Jaguar the dynamism it craved.
So the F-Pace is based on the same architecture as the XE and XF, which means it’s largely aluminium – 80% of the body.
There’s magnesium in there, too; the cross chassis rail is made of it and, where mounted high, magnesium’s lesser weight helps to lower the centre of gravity compared with what it would be if steel or aluminium were used.
A steel boot floor helps there, too, and shifts the weight distribution towards the back, because Jaguar’s dynamicists wanted that to be as near as possible to 50/50.
The F-Pace has double wishbones at the front and an integral link rear suspension system. Engines are mounted longitudinally at the front and drive through either a six-speed manual or eight-speed automatic transmission, depending on the specification.
There’s a choice of three engines to choose from: a 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel, as tested here, and 3.0-litre V6 turbocharged diesel and supercharged petrol variants, the bigger motors are only available as an automatic however.
Four-wheel drive will be a mainstay of the range, but the 2.0d can also be had with rear-wheel drive only. In RWD guise, it drives exclusively through a six-speed manual gearbox.
The four-wheel drive system fitted here is related to the one that made its debut in the F-Type, which means it’s mostly rear biased.
In normal driving, in fact, it’s entirely rear driven, but as soon as there’s slip, it starts to divert up to 50% of the power towards the front. Which, all in, makes the F-Pace sound like it’s an SUV with a lot of S. Source by autocar.co.uk
Continue to Interior
No comments:
Post a Comment