Jaguar is serious about making its F-TYPE into a Porsche 911 competitor, and that means dialing up the number of variants, starting with the addition of all-wheel drive to the lineup.
The company revealed its first all-wheel drive F-TYPE ahead of a planned formal debut at the 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show. It’s just one of several upgrades the F-TYPE will get for the 2016 model year, Jaguar says.
Jaguar is showing the top F-TYPE R Coupe first, but all-wheel drive will probably be available on other models as well. The only external difference appears to be an “AWD” badge on the trunk lid.
The specifics of what Jaguar calls its “Instinctive All-Wheel Drive” system will be revealed in L.A., but the carmaker did say that the extra traction knocks the R Coupe’s 0 to 60 mph time down from 4.0 seconds to 3.9. The electronically-limited top speed is unchanged at 186 mph.
Related: 2015 Jaguar F-TYPE Coupe first drive
Carmakers often choose out-of-the-way locations to reveal their all-wheel drive vehicles, and Jaguar was no different. For the preview, the all-wheel drive F-TYPE was brought to South Africa’s Hakskeen Pan, where the Bloodhound SSC team hope to break the world land speed record.
Jaguar is partnering with Bloodhound, which hopes to build the first car to travel 1,000 mph. That car will be driven by Royal Air Force pilot Andy Green, who holds the current land speed record of 763.03 mph.
The F-TYPE isn’t that fast, but it was driven across the Pan’s soft surface while using radio equipment from the Bloodhound to communicate with a jet flying overhead. So it should be able to handle a snowy parking lot.
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