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Driving Jaguar's Continuation Lightweight E-Type

Something has happened to sports cars over the past 15-20 years. While reaching ever-higher levels of quantitative dominance the driving experience continues to become more sterile. Stability control, torque vectoring, variable electronic steering racks, lightning-quick dual-clutch automatic transmissions – all these make it easier to harness more power and drive faster than ever before. And yet too often it feels like something is missing. There is a growing divide between the capabilities of the modern performance car and the driver's sense of connection to the experience. In an era like the one we're in now, the Jaguar Lightweight E-Type hits you like a slap in the face. The story of the Lightweight E-Type goes back to 1963, when Jaguar set aside eighteen chassis numbers for a run of "Special GT E-Type" cars. These were factory-built racers with aluminum bodies, powered by the aluminum-block, 3.8-liter inline-six found in Jaguar's C- and D-Type LeMans racecars of the 1950s. Of the eighteen cars slated for production, only twelve were built and delivered to customers in 1964. For the next fifty years, those last six chassis numbers lay dormant, until their rediscovery a couple of years ago in a book in Jaguar's archives. In an era like the one we're in now, the Jaguar Lightweight E-Type hits you like a slap in the face. Jaguar Heritage, a section of Jaguar Land Rover's new Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division, took on the task of researching the original Lightweight E-Types and developing the methods to create new ones. Every aspect of the continuation Lightweight E-Type, from the development of the tools and molds used to build the cars, to the hand-craftsmanship, reflects doing things the hard way. They may not build them like they used to, but with these six special E-Types, Jaguar comes awfuly close, if not better. Working alongside the design team, Jaguar Heritage made a CAD scan of one side of an original Lightweight E-Type body. That scan was flipped to create a full car's worth of measurements. That ensured greater symmetry and better fit than on the original Lightweight E-Types (which could see five to ten millimeter variance, left-to-right). The scan was also used to perfect the frame, while Jaguar looked through notes in its crash repair books to reverse-engineer the Lightweight E-Type's suspension. The team repurposed a lot of existing tooling for the continuation cars, and developed the rest from analysis of the CAD scan.

Porsche tops JD Power APEAL study for 12th time

JD Power's 2016 Automotive Performance, Execution, and Layout (APEAL) study hasn't changed much this time around with Porsche coming in at No.1 for the 12th consecutive year, while BMW was close behind in second. Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz tied for third with Land Rover, Lexus, and Lincoln tied for No.5. The APEAL Study, according to JD Power, measures owners' level of excitement and emotional attachment across 77 parameters. Brands and cars are rated on a 1,000-point scale. The study found that new cars with modern safety features including low speed collision avoidance and blind spot monitoring have higher APEAL scores than vehicles without the features. The overall industry score increased from 798 to 801, which JD Power claims was helped by the launch of a variety of new vehicles. This year, 22 out of 30 new or redesigned cars received a higher score than the vehicle's respective segment average. Porsche is once again at the top of the list as the automaker's score increased by three points to 877. BMW outscored Jaguar to take second place with a score of 859, while the British automaker dropped three points from last year with 852 points. Volkswagen overtook Mini to become the top-ranked non-premium brand with 809 points, while the latter automaker trailed behind by one point. At the end of the scale, Smart came in at the very bottom for the second year in a row with a score of 745 points, which represents an increase of 62 points over last year. Fiat's score increased by six points to 755, but still confined the automaker to second-to-worst place for a consecutive year. Mitsubishi's score increased to 770, up from 755, to become the fourth-worst brand, while Jeep fell to third-worst with a decrease in seven points to 756. General Motors received six segment-level awards, followed by Hyundai with five, and BMW and VW earning four apiece. Surprise segment victories include the Chevrolet Camaro, which outscored the Dodge Challenger, and the Lexus RC which ranked above the BMW 4 and 3 Series. For more information on how the automakers ranked, check out the official release on the 2016 APEAL Study below or visit JD Power's website to analyze the graphs. Related Video: Porsche Ranks Highest in APEAL for 12th Consecutive Year; General Motors Receives Six Segment-Level Awards, Hyundai Motor Company Receives Five DETROIT: 27 July 2016 — Popular driver-assist technologies help make vehicles considerably more appealing to their owners, according to the J.D.

50th Anniversary Porsche 911 vs. Jaguar F-Type Coupe is a battle of beauty, brawn

There can't really be a loser between the Jaguar F-Type Coupe R and the Porsche 911 50th Anniversary Edition. One might be better than the other, but if you're behind the wheel of either of them, you can't complain. In a new video, Motor Trend takes on the difficult task of determining which one of these European powerhouses is the best, not just in terms of raw performance, but also how they actually feel to drive.
The Porsche 911 is one of the perennial favorites of the motoring world. It just doesn't go away and always seems capable of challenging the top vehicles in its class. In this video, Motor Trend takes a look at the 50th Anniversary Edition model that celebrates that heritage while boosting power somewhat over the standard version.
The F-Type Coupe is an incredibly masculine car, MT describing it as "a British Corvette." The coupe's exterior lines are tautly stretched over its athletic body, and it's supercharged 5.0-liter V8 sounds like a demon's growl. Jaguar seems to have things right with its latest sports car.