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Jaguar's F-Sleigh replaces reindeer with jet power

'Tis the season for automakers to demonstrate how they would design Santa's famous (if fictitious) sleigh. The F-Sleigh concept is based on the F-Type convertible, but this one has skids instead of wheels, a pair of jet engines in place of the supercharged V8, the requisite red nose (embossed with the Growler emblem), and of course plenty of room for gifts. This is the second time we've seen a modern Jaguar design incorporating small turbines, and takes the idea of a 550-horse open sleigh to new heights. Jaguar rendered the design in an ice sculpture and is displaying it this holiday season at the London Edition hotel in the British capital. Joining the F-Sleigh on display are some of the more tempting items from the latest Jaguar and Land Rover merchandise collections, including a 1:8 scale model of a 1957 XKSS and a Defender pedal car. But it's the centerpiece that caught our attention, looking at least as cool as some of the designs we've seen from the likes of Ford, Honda, Lexus, Bentley, or even Jaguar Land Rover's previous concepts. Now if you'll excuse us, we have to rush down to the fireplace to replace the milk and cookies with a tanker full of jet fuel. Related Video: JAGUAR UNVEILS EXCLUSIVE CHRISTMAS 'F-SLEIGH' DESIGN TO CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH OF JAGUAR AND LAND ROVER 2016 MERCHANDISE COLLECTIONS - Jaguar unveils special Christmas-themed design study codenamed F-SLEIGH - Jaguar and Land Rover host exclusive launch of new 2016 branded collection in central London - Items from the new collections available to buy at Jaguar and Land Rover retailers and online stores: https://shop.jaguar.co.uk/ / https://shop.landrover.co.uk/ (The London Edition, London W1 - 14 December 2015): Jaguar and Land Rover showcased their latest collection of branded goods alongside licensed partners in central London today, to mark the launch of the brands' 2016 collections. A special ice-sculpture of a Christmas-inspired Jaguar design was exclusively revealed at the London Edition hotel to celebrate the merchandise and luxury goods launch. Codenamed 'F-SLEIGH', the Jaguar Christmas sleigh takes inspiration from the Jaguar F-TYPE convertible, but with skates in place of wheels, a generous open luggage compartment for gifts and jet power to generate Jaguar's renowned supercharged performance through the night sky. A Growler-embossed red nose completes the F-SLEIGH's Christmas theme.

Our 2018 Jaguar F-Pace has an infuriating shifter

Let me preface this by saying that I quite enjoy our long-term 2018 Jaguar F-Pace. Its quick, handsome and pretty good on a road trip. It handles well for a crossover, too. My biggest gripe with the F-Pace is the interior, and my biggest gripe with the interior is the damned rotary shifter. I've never fought a vehicle so much just to get it to shift into reverse and neutral. I have a tendency to rant, but usually offline, in the company of friends and under the influence of a few drinks. I've spent a lot of time behind the wheel of the F-Pace, and an incident this week in an automatic car wash this week prompted this post. Simply put, it took probably 10 seconds for me to get it to shift into neutral and another 10 seconds to get it back into drive. This is annoying in any situation, but when you're holding up a line of cars trying to wash off a thick layer of salt and ice, it's infuriating. The rotary shifter simply wouldn't rotate into either drive or reverse. This might be user error and it might be exclusive to our particular F-Pace, but I don't recall have the same issue in our XE (I admittedly drove it less) and I definitely have never had such problems with other shifters. Not even the BMW-style fixed rocker type or weird handle ones in the Toyota Prius. I even consulted the owner's manual to make sure I'm doing it properly. The only thing I can think of is that I'm not putting enough pressure on the brake pedal while turning the dial. Yet, even those editors who haven't experienced this problem admit that the design has lost its way. Jaguar introduced the rotary shifter in the original XF back in 2009. At the time, its housing was compact and offset, serving the functional purpose of freeing up space for center console storage (as you can see in the photo above). The same concept was later applied to the Jaguar XJ and copied in the Ram 1500. Now, compare that design to the shifter in the F-Pace (as well as the XE and current XF). It's right in the center with a bezel that takes up as much room as the shift boot on a manual transmission. There's no added storage benefit and the surrounding piano black trim collects dust and fingerprints like a forensics squad. In other words, instead of a space efficiency solution, it's a space-robbing novelty that drives me nuts at the car wash. Related Video: Image Credit: Jeremy Korzeniewski, Jaguar Design/Style Jaguar Long-Term Garage Crossover SUV Luxury Performance jaguar f-pace jaguar f-pace s

Highlights from the Goodwood Festival of Speed, including the McLaren P1 and a Ford Transit running the hill

The sole purpose of this post is as a time-waster, and since you shouldn't have to work to waste time, we've done it for you. In the numerous videos below you'll find cars that have lately been in the news tramping all over the grounds of Lord March's estate in Goodwood, England.
There's the McLaren P1 heading up the hill, the Jaguar Project 7, then a casually-driven Porsche 917 followed by an even-more-casually-driven Porsche 956, topped off by a Porsche 936 that is anything but casually driven. The next round is the flame-spitting Peugeot 405 T16 Pikes Peak from Climb Dance, a camera mounted on the Peugeot RCZ R after it showing you what the whole, uninterrupted run up the hill looks like. For a real head-turner, we couldn't embed it but there's Andy Reid blasting up the hill in a Ford Transit Supervan with a Cosworth 3000 V6 engine.
The modern racing contingent has Allan McNish doing the hill in the Audi R18 e-tron quattro he used to win Le Mans and Lewis Hamilton making lots of tire smoke in the Mercedes-AMG Petronas MGP-W02. For comparison, that's followed by Nick Heidfeld's record-setting run up the hill in 1999 in the McLaren MP4/14 . The classic racing contingent is headlined by 71-year-old Giacomo Agostini on an MV Agusta.