Black Mirror

Jaguar’s revitalised 423kw F-Type r coupe hits the timber trail

- Andy Enright

His road was built for timber, gold and snow. Starting in the Warburton Ranges east of Melbourne, it tracks towards the dawn sun for 90km, through the pit of the Little Yarra valley before pitching sharply uphill, all knotted and gnarled, ultimately terminating at Mt Baw Baw ski resort. It delivers a benign intro with a real sting in the tail; the sort of route that offers a concentrated torture test of a car’s abilities.

To key into this sort of challenge, you need something with torque to tackle the gradients, excellent chassis support to cope with the patchwork forest surfaces and the agility to bob and weave around road debris, collapsing bitumen shoulders and the occasional hard of hearing marsupial. In other words, probably not a Jaguar F-Type R. This is a road for something lighter, more immediate, more wide-eyed, not for something transferring the masses of a mid-sized SUV. The spec sheet lists the weight being ‘from 1818kgs’ but further investigation reveals that figure to include a 75kg driver, fluids and 90 per cent fuel. Still, pulling a vehicle beyond its comfort zone remains the most effective way to discover how far that zone extends.

It probably won’t have escaped your attention that this is the facelifted version of the F-Type. I tend to experience a little shudder when cars are treated to a mid-life facelift if only because, more often than not, the results aren’t always any great improvement. Indeed, when I first saw press photos of the updated F-Type I wasn’t sold. The front end looked as if it had lost its identity, with the slimmer lights giving it a more generic appearance. I was wrong and while it’s not my job to tell you what looks good or otherwise, the big coupe now looks more svelte and more modern. Park it next to the old car and the original now seems a little heavy-handed.