Hello and welcome to the inside of a Jaguar E-Pace. What is an E-Pace? Well it’s not
electrically powered like most people’s E’s, it’s just smaller than an F-Pace.
F-Pace, E-Pace, makes perfect sense. Think of it as a rival to BMW X1, Audi Q3, one of
the Mercedes GL... something or other, A? Probably. A new sport cross over, of which
there are lots aren’t there? SUV crossover 4x4, call them what you will. This is four-wheel-drive,
this car, and it shares its platform, it’s about 4.4, 4.5 metres long, it shares its
platform with the Land Rover Discovery Sport or Range Rover Evoque but is not built in
the same place because the Halewood plant in Liverpool that is building Evoque and Disco
Sport is already full so it’s built, well some of them are going to be built in China,
this one I think is built in Austria at the Magna Steyr plant. So, a new JLR product.
Well what’s it got under the skin? Well it's got a transverse front mounted engine
driving through, in this case, you can have a six speed manual, this has got a nine speed
ZF transmission, it’s a new-ish transmission built specifically for transverse applications,
predominantly front wheel drive applications because that’s the most significant thing
about the new E-Pace from our point of view. I mean, you know, some people will go for
the looks and blah, blah, blah. What you and I want to know, is it any good to drive because
it’s a front-wheel-drive platform, the first front-wheel-drive Jaguar since the X-Type.
They don’t wheel out the X-Type very often, do they? They’ll often wheel out a D-Type,
E-Type’s everywhere. You don’t see them X-Types, you don’t see heritage fleet X-Types
very often, do you? Funny. Anyway, they’re all going to be powered, E-Paces not X-Types,
by the Ingenium range of Jaguar's engine so they’re diesel, petrol modular four-cylinder
things, I think they will share quite a lot of components, share a block. This one is
the petrol with 300 metric horsepower which is what, 296 brake? So let’s pop it down,
manual override on the thing. How does it sound? Relatively quiet, in fact when I’m
tootling along doing 60mph which is the limit on this road, can’t hear the engine at all.
You do get a reasonable bit of wind noise and a bit of road noise, normal for the class
I think actually. Refinement levels are pretty good. Alright what about the rest of it inside?
Well, you know you get in an Audi, it feels like an Audi, you get in a BMW, it feels like
a BMW, you get in this Jaguar and it does, to its credit, feel like a Jaguar. Now from
a sort of construction point of view, from a sort of prod things point of view and infotainment
point of view that doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s the best in the class because,
you know, Audi’s, BMW’s, they all have that really Germanic, solid feeling plastics,
rubberised plastics that you don’t quite get to the same extent in here but it is pretty
nicely designed. It’s got a swooping dashboard this side which separates driver and passenger
quite nicely. That side looks like, I don’t know, some kind of water feature would pour
over it but what it does mean is it gives this sort of driver focussed cabin, you get
that in an F-Type, the sports car actually and I quite like that. There’s a little
bit of glare off some of the aluminium in here, some manufacturers don’t do that,
the Range Rover Velar was the same, you get the sort of sun down on it and it belts back
up straight in your face. But, by and large it is a pleasing enough interior, there’s
enough space in the back, loads of storage cubbies actually, Jaguar makes a big thing
of this. Big door pockets, big bin in here, but importantly, what’s it like to drive?
Well, this one, because it’s a fairly high range topping one, is four-wheel-drive but
it gets the blend of ride and handling not too bad. If you come at it expecting Jaguar
saloon dynamics, you’re not going to find them. Okay, it steers, it steers quite nicely
to be fair but when you sort of lean on it in a corner, it leans onto the front outside
tyre a bit and then as you sort of lift it just sort of gets a bit of diagonal pitch
going on. It’s pretty good for a car of this type but a saloon car, a lower car will
always be a dynamically superior thing. The ride quality is okay, around town it’s a
bit brittle because this one is on 20’s, 20’s look big on a car like this, it’s
a small car and even if you style it swoopily and aggressively, I always think that sort
of a compact tall SUV trying to look angry always just, never looks really aggressive
does it, it sort of looks like an angry jelly baby or something and they never look really
grrr. So against the other cars in this class, well it is a Jaguar take on the small SUV
thing and that’s fine you know actually, if you come to this car expecting Jaguar dynamics,
you won’t find them, but you wouldn’t buy an SUV if that’s what you wanted in
the first place. If you want a car that looks like a Jaguar, feels pretty much like a Jaguar,
certainly is like a Jaguar inside, it’s probably the best looking car in the class,
isn’t it? It’s nice enough inside, it’s nice enough to drive … it’s fine.
They'll sell bloody loads of them won’t they?