Jaguar F-Types Are Fast, Gorgeous, and Surprisingly Cheap

For a decade or so, from the early 1950s, through the early 1960s, Jaguar looked like an unstoppable sports car juggernaut. From 1951-1957, they won the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times. They even got under Enzo Ferrari’s skin when he sneered that Jaguar builds race cars to sell road cars, while Ferrari builds road cars so they can race. And while the E-Type wasn’t raced intensively, it was the most talked about sports car of the early 1960s. Eventually, though, it got successively heavier and less graceful, and ended its life as a big, V-12 cruiser. Worse, it had no immediate successor.

Fast forward a half a century, to the 2012 Paris Motor Show, and Jaguar, under new Indian ownership, finally gave the E-Type an heir it deserved. The gorgeous Ian Callum-designed F-Type was a reality. While still technically a GT, it was, like the original E-Type, strictly a two-seater, and it was far edgier than any post-E-Type Jaguar coupe had been. Critics adored the car, handing it the coveted World Car Design of the Year Award. Like the E-Type, though, its run was relatively short. While rivals like the Corvette and the 911 are still around, the E and the F lasted just 13 and 10 years, respectively. As 1974 was the last model year for the E-Type, 2024 is the last model year for the F-Type. Now, with the F-Type gone, and with Jaguar’s future uncertain, a charismatic Jaguar sports car once again finds itself out of production with no successor in the wings. The E-Type’s best days as a collectible might be in the rear view mirror, but the F-Type hasn’t yet begun to register with collectors. For a potential buyer, that’s a good thing.

For anyone cross-shopping serious European performance cars like the Aston Martin Vantage, Mercedes-AMG SL, and the F-type R, the latter is clearly the bargain purchase. For $40,000 or less in today’s market, you get a drop-dead gorgeous and fairly uncommon car with a 550 hp supercharged V-8. It still looks and certainly sounds like a car that costs several times that. What makes the 2015 version of the F-type R special is the fact that it’s also the only one that’s rear-wheel-drive. 

Car and Driver minced no words and left no suspense in its first road test in 2015—the headlined blared “2015 Jaguar F-type R Coupe: A Truly Great Car, Period.”  In fact, C and D could barely contain itself: “[S]tomp on the hair-trigger accelerator pedal and the R coupe immediately transforms itself into the snarling, potent thing that its bulging rear fenders suggest. The supercharged 5.0-liter sends an immediate wallop of power to the rear wheels, which hunt for traction, ever-so-slightly re-vectoring the nose. It’s heady, addicting stuff.” Indeed, a decade later, the 3.5-second 0-60 time and 1.00g skidpad performance are still credible, along with its 170 feet from 70 mph stopping power.

In this day of impeding electrification, and arguments as to the merits of artificial engine sound-effects, it’s important to remember that the thing that testers of the day found the most intoxicating about the F-type R was the noise, of the purely organic, ICE variety. Motor Trend called it “an autopomorphic soccer hooligan, raucously, dirty, filthy, double plus good.” The car’s sexiness isn’t confined to the exterior and the sounds. The interior oozes with a character, and sportiness not seen in any Jaguar since the very first Series I E-Type, the one with the delicious-looking (but super uncomfortable) low-back bucket seats. The chairs in the F-type R, though, are dead-ringers for Recaro Sportsters, heavily-bolstered and usually with contrasting leather inserts. They’re actually comfortable, and supportive, just not quite as easy to get in and out of as the seats in the F-Type’s XK coupe predecessors, a sure sign that Jaguar was aiming for a different demographic for the F-Type.

Alas, now it’s gone, after just one decade. It honestly seems like the first ride and drives that Jaguar held at the Amelia Concours in 2015 were just a few years ago. The buzz around the car then was huge. F-Types always turned heads when drivers couldn’t resist blasting down the A1A with the exhaust valves open. They were talked about, and lusted after, even among that very discerning crowd. Today, attention has moved on and they’re just used cars.

Jaguar did build a fair number of them (over 87,000), although to be fair, most weren’t Rs. Just 1364 2015 rear-drive Rs were built for the U.S., and just 2891 worldwide. It’s legitimately rare and special. Hint, hint. As I write this, there’s one for sale at a CarMax (with an available warranty) and 52,000 miles all for the nicely-equipped Honda CR-V price of just $39,995(!)

What about reliability, you say, the traditional bugaboo of Jags? For F-Types, it’s actually pretty decent. Although JD Power flamed the car for infotainment system issues, long-term owners say the cars are really pretty good, with the V-8 proving to be especially robust. Most even report getting pretty good gas mileage for a 550 hp supercharged V-8—high teens in the city, high 20s on the highway. Late model Jags haven’t been the darlings of collectors, and while that could change for the last rear-wheel-drive, two-seater Jaguar sports car, it hasn’t yet. And that represents a buying opportunity.