Jaguar Xk8 Convertible Chrome Loaded on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Jaguar F-Pace prototype goes to work at the Nurburgring

Jaguar is hard at work again, testing its upcoming F-Pace crossover. And here's our latest look at the prototype testing at the Nurburgring. The tester spotted here appears the same as the one we recently saw undergoing cold-weather development, only this time it's wearing summer rubber on fullsize wheels instead of winter tires on smaller ones. It's also missing the old prototype's auxiliary lights, and a bit more camouflage covering the quarter panels. The fact that it was seen on the Nordschleife, however, bodes well for the F-Pace and speaks to its orientation: Jaguar's first crossover promises to be geared towards performance, a sort of on-road counterpart to the off-road prowess of the SUVs offered by its sister brand Land Rover. We're looking forward to seeing the finished product at the Frankfurt Motor Show in the fall, but in the meantime you can scope out the spy shots in the slideshow above.

Jaguar Land Rover CEO: Wrong Brexit deal will cost thousands of UK jobs

BIRMINGHAM, England — The wrong Brexit deal could cost tens of thousands of jobs, the boss of Britain's biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover warned on Tuesday, saying he had no idea whether his plants would be able to operate after Britain leaves the European Union next year. Ralf Speth also said that the company would not be able to build cars if customs checks meant that the motorway to and from the southern English port of Dover, which is used to transport components, becomes a "car park" due to snarl-ups of people no longer able to move freely among EU countries. Speth made the warning at a conference in Birmingham, central England, speaking shortly before Prime Minister Theresa May, who is battling to have her so-called Chequers Brexit plan accepted by many in her Conservative Party as well as the EU ahead of Britain's departure from the bloc on March 29. "A thousand (jobs were) lost as a result of diesel policy, and those numbers will be counted in the tens of thousands if we do not get the right Brexit deal," warned Speth, referring to redundancies made earlier this year at the firm. "Currently I do not even know if any of our manufacturing facilities in the UK will be able to function on the 30th," he said. The boss of JLR, which built nearly a third of Britain's cars last year, also said long-standing issues around low productivity in Britain could be compounded by a Brexit agreement which made the country less competitive. "It is thousands of pounds cheaper to produce vehicles for instance in Eastern Europe than in Solihull, and what decisions will I be forced to make if Brexit means not merely that costs go up but that we cannot physically build cars on time and on budget in the UK?" he said.Reporting by Costas Pitas

2016 Jaguar F-Type debuts available manual transmission, AWD

If you're like us, you fell in the deepest, darkest sort of love with Jaguar's F-Type the moment its voluptuous form first surfaced. The car's full-bodied engine specs only furthered our ardor, and the droptop Jag sealed the deal before we even turned a wheel - all it took was hearing its engine bark to life.
And yet, even after driving the original convertible and the subsequent coupe, we've never quite shaken the notion that Jaguar erred a bit too heavily on the Grand Touring side of the equation for a proper sports car. That's partially because even the base model comes with a boatload of weight-adding luxury features. But perhaps more importantly, it's because the F-Type has only been available with an automatic transmission. Admittedly, the gearbox in question is a damned good paddle-shifted eight-speed ZF unit, but it's always chafed a bit that Jaguar wasn't committed to offering purists a manual - even if such a model would never be a high-volume proposition.
Apparently we weren't the only ones bothered by three-pedal omission. According to Russ Varney, F-Type Vehicle Program Director,