The 2021 Jaguar F-Type looks tougher and won’t wake up your neighbors

Jaguar has announced a mid-cycle refresh for its flagship sports car, the F-Type. Announced as a 2021 model year, the car boasts sleeker lines, a bigger mouth, and better lights in hopes of building on what is already a painfully gorgeous design penned by ex-head of design Ian Callum.

The car’s exterior—which had remained largely unchanged since its debut in 2014—sports a few noteworthy changes meant to more effectively incorporate the aging two-seater into Jaguar’s modern-day design language.

It starts with new, thinner headlights, set lower on the body than those of the earlier car. Those headlights nestle themselves under a revised clamshell hood and into a new front bumper. The changes pull the F-Type’s face forward and down while stretching it laterally, like your weird aunt would do to your cheeks around the holidays. Thankfully, the changes look a lot better than whatever your aunt was going for.

The F-Type now features slimmer light clusters out back, filleted to fall more into line with the I-Pace, Jag’s first bold step into an EV future. Reworked rear bumpers and a revised rear diffuser also help pull the car down toward the ground visually.

The F-Type can still be had in three flavors of feral. The base F-Type offers a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four producing 296 horsepower. Buyers can kick things up a notch with the F-Type R-Dynamic, where Jag’s supercharged 3.0-liter V-6 engine cranks out 380 horsepower. (A lower powered variant of this engine has been dropped from the lineup.) At the top rung of the ladder, the F-Type R boasts a reworked version of the 5.0-liter supercharged V-8, which now churns out 575 horsepower, equal to the now-defunct F-Type SVR.

All versions of the F-Type will have the same eight-speed automatic transmission. The top-tier V-8 and mid-range V-6 models come exclusively with all-wheel drive, while the four-cylinder model will only come as a rear-drive car.

Each variant of the F-Type will feature its own unique exhaust tips, offering savvy passers-by a quick reference as to what’s under that new hood. Four-cylinder versions will get a single, centrally-mounted outlet, while V-6 examples brandish two single tailpipes. The V-8 examples will get a pair of exhaust tips at each rear corner. New for 2021, the V-8 will offer a quiet start mode, which will spare your neighbors a rude awakening each morning, thanks to electronically-actuated bypass valves in the rear mufflers.

Inside the cockpit, a configurable 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster replaces the old twin-gauge unit. The 10-inch central screen offers the latest version of Jaguar’s InControl Pro infotainment software. Conventional climate controls are still found below the screen, thankfully.

In conjunction with the release, Jaguar released a neat video of a fully-camouflaged Hot Wheels version of the car providing a 1:64 representation of the car’s journey from idea to implementation to unveiling. Thankfully, it looks like the F-Type hasn’t lost that trademark, hell-raising snarl, particularly in in the top-tier V-8 model.

So far we don’t know for sure what Jaguar has planned for the next generation of the F-Type, or whether it includes some kind of electrification technology. For now, we’re thrilled to see the brash and beautiful two-seater carry on at the top of Jag’s lineup.