2017 Jaguar F-Pace

While we might not be learning much about how the new Jaguar F-Pace will deal with the challenges typically faced by luxury crossovers, we’re certainly having fun.

Jaguar Land Rover’s test facility near Arjeplog in northern Sweden is practically in the Arctic Circle, and at this time of year every surface is covered in either snow or ice. Or, in the case of the 300-foot-diameter circle that we’re drifting a prototype F-Pace around, a combination of both. Although it’s just past noon, the sun is barely above the horizon and starting to fall, and the outside temperature is a bracing negative-22 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet this supercharged V-6 F-Pace seems entirely happy to slide around seemingly indefinitely, the cabin staying warm and the well-mannered chassis politely declining every invitation to spin out, despite the provocation of a pinned-open throttle and the deactivation of every dynamic aid.

It’s a memorable introduction, and it’s fair to say that our first experience of the F-Pace is highly positive. But after a day in various prototypes, many of our questions remained, at best, partially answered. This is not because of any enforced restrictions or signed-in-blood nondisclosure agreements, but rather because we can only report how the F-Pace deals with various types of thoroughly frozen water. While JLR’s Revi Test Center has nearly 40 miles of tracks and courses, most of which are built on the surface of a frozen lake—including one three-quarter-mile section formed in the shape of Jaguar’s “leaper” logo exclusively for our visit—not a single yard of surface is anything other than ice and snow.

The Ice Keeps Secrets

So while we expect that the F-Pace will manifest some steering feel once we’re on proper roads, in Sweden the combination of winter tires and a distinct lack of nearly any surface friction meant it displayed all the feedback and resistance of an early 1980s arcade racing game. Similarly we can extrapolate little from the way it rode over Revi’s glass-smooth surfaces, and we didn’t get to experience the brakes under anything beyond the juddering retardation of a full ABS deployment. What we can confirm is that the F-Pace feels exciting in a way that none of its rivals do—excepting just one.

Yes, Porsche should be very flattered, and the Jaguar development team admits as much. The Macan was launched after engineering of the F-Pace was already well advanced, delivering the sharp realization that it was good enough to effectively reset the segment’s benchmarks. The Jaguar originally was being developed with the target of beating the BMW X3, but the Macan caused the program to be paused for several months for things such as retuning the suspension’s springs and anti-roll bars to be stiffer. According to the development team, that’s also when the F-Pace went from being an SUV to what we’re told to think of as a sports crossover.

Not that such a delay means much in the overall scheme of things. The F-Pace could charitably be described as being at least a decade behind the rest of the luxury segment. Jaguar’s partnership with an existing and highly successful SUV specialist gives some excuse for such tardiness, but it’s probably not much consolation to those who have been trying to sell the brand’s existing model lineup to those convinced they really want one of those spiffy luxury off-roaders. To get away with being this late to a party you have to either sneak in very quietly or make a grand entrance.

The Usual Powertrain Suspects

Describing the F-Pace as an SUV’d version of the recently redesigned XF sedanwould be unkind but not entirely unfair. The two cars sit on the same mostly aluminum platform and share large amounts of underlying structure. Jaguar admits that the bodies-in-white of both vehicles are largely the same ahead of the B-pillars, although the F-Pace gets an entirely new subframe for its longer-travel front suspension. The bulk of U.S.-market F-Paces will pack a 3.0-liter supercharged V-6 available in 340- and 380-hp states of tune; we spent most of our time in Sweden with the latter, although we also had a turn in the Euro-spec 3.0-liter V-6 diesel. The American model also will offer a 2.0-liter four-cylinder diesel engine. Some markets will have the option of gasoline four-cylinders, rear-wheel drive, and even manual gearboxes, but U.S.-spec F-Paces will be exclusively available with Jaguar’s all-wheel-drive system (beefed up from its XE, XF, and F-type applications with a larger front differential) and an eight-speed automatic transmission.

The other mechanical components are all unsurprising, with the front control-arm and rear multilink suspension setups closely related to those fitted to the XE and XF. Jaguar claims a respectable 8.3 inches of ground clearance, but the F-Pace does without air springs and only the top-spec versions have switchable dampers. Variable-ratio electric power steering is standard.

The partial disguise worn by the prototype versions we drove served to emphasize how fundamentally wagon-y the F-Pace’s lines and dimensions are. Ian Callum, Jaguar’s design director, doesn’t really do straight lines, and the F-Pace is as curvaceous as any of his sports cars. His enthusiasm for big wheels is equally well known, and the production F-Pace will be available with pieces as large as 22 inches in diameter; despite their Continental winter tires, the prototypes we drove were still packing 20-inchers.

Behind the Wheel

With temperatures cold enough to freeze nasal hairs within seconds, we don’t linger to admire the exterior design. The cabin feels more familiar, like that of an XE or an XF with a slightly higher view, the switchgear and general design ethos clearly shared among the vehicles. The fat center console contains Jaguar’s familiar rotary gear selector with high-spec versions getting both a 12.3-inch TFT instrument cluster and a vast, 10.2-inch touchscreen in the center of the dashboard. Sweden reveals one flaw: The thick door panels and low-mounted air vents make it very difficult to keep the side windows frost-free in these Arctic conditions. Despite our having been warned that these are working prototype vehicles, everything felt finished to an impressively high standard.

An abundance of power and limited available grip means there’s plenty of opportunity to experience a handling balance that’s as benign as one of Charles Dickens’s more avuncular characters. As in Jaguar’s existing all-wheel-drive models, most engine output heads rearward until slip is detected, with torque then diverted to the front to help pull it back onto your intended line (or something closer to it). On ice, and in the more aggressive driving modes, there’s a distinct pause before the front axle steps in to do its bit; even in the default Normal mode the rear end will slide slightly. Switching to Dynamic mode, or turning the stability control down or off, produces progressively more of this power-on oversteer, with the lack of a locking differential having little effect on the F-Pace’s ability to hold jaunty angles for impressive distances. On what’s literally the back straight of the cat-shaped “leaper” course there’s enough room to confirm that, even after building up to an indicated 75 mph, the F-Pace still happily—and predictably—claws its way sideways down the straight with the stability-control system switched off.

All of which is fun, but likely irrelevant to anybody who doesn’t possess their own frozen lake to play on. And it’s actually in its most cautious AdSR mode (a.k.a. Winter mode) that the F-Pace impresses most. Jaguar’s chassis team developed what’s described as Adaptive Surface Response (AdSR) as a system that takes input from various sensors to work out approximate grip levels on low-adhesion surfaces before you even turn the wheel, and then tries to help you make the most of them. There’s none of the adrenaline-spiking oversteer of the punchier modes, and throttle response is backed off enough to make you feel as if a length of elastic has been slipped into the mechanism, but the system works subtly to minimize understeer and smooth acceleration without obvious intervention. It’s an ego blow to realize that we’re practically as quick around the twistier courses with the car in this most cautious setting.

The supercharged V-6 deserves praise, too, pulling strongly and delivering linear responses pretty much throughout its broad power band. (The V-6 diesel, although far torquier, feels peaky by comparison and has a far more industrial soundtrack, so don’t feel too badly that we’re not getting it.) The eight-speed gearbox shifts cleanly and, in its sport setting, intelligently under hard use, with the ability to override via paddles behind the steering wheel. Even switching between gears while drifting under full power wasn’t an issue and didn’t upset the car.

The F-Pace has another, less-exciting weapon to use against the Macan: sensibleness. The rumors from inside Jaguar are that slow sales of its previous station-wagon models mean the F-Pace, and a possible smaller sister, will fulfill the same mission from here on in. It’s noticeably larger than the Porsche in back and has a far more spacious luggage area. These things matter, at least as much as the ability to go sideways on a frozen lake. For a car that we’ve been told marks a radical departure for Jaguar, the F-Pace feels reassuringly unradical in practice. And while there are still many unanswered questions, not the least of which being why Jaguar waited so long to launch a vehicle the market has been clamoring for, the first impressions are excellent.