Jaguar’s best-seller here, the F-Pace SUV, gets new looks, an improved cabin and a new plug-in hybrid electric variant. Starts at S$253k at COE

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SINGAPORE

A facelift for the Jaguar F-Pace gives it a resculpted face and a total refurbishment inside.

Local dealer Wearnes Automotive pulled the covers off the 2.0 R-Dynamic S version of the car today, priced at S$252,999 with Certificate Of Entitlement (COE). It has a 2.0-litre turbo engine good for 250 horsepower that drives all four wheels though an eight-speed automatic gearbox, and hits 100km/h in a brisk 6.6 seconds.

A high-performance F-Pace SVR is on the way, with 5.0 V8 power and the ability to do the same sprint to 100km/h in just 4 seconds.

It’s been exactly five years since we drove the F-Pace at its global launch, which is a long time in car product cycle terms, but rejigging its first-ever Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) has kept Jaguar busy. 

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New lighting tech, courtesy of LEDs, has allowed the lights to slim down at both ends of the car, and the F-Pace gets the bolt-on updates that usually come with a mid-life facelift: resculpted bumpers, a larger, more prominent front grille and a revised bonnet design that now stretches all the way to the grille, almost like a clamshell. Take a close look at the air vents on the front fenders and you’ll now see Jag’s “leaper” emblems.

Launch units get active headlamps with what Jag calls “pixel technology”, which are usually a cost option. They put on a little show when you unlock the car, and can apparently throw a more powerful beam without blinding oncoming traffic.

Inside the F-Pace is where Jaguar has spent the most effort. There’s a new dashboard poshed up by plenty of leather, and a general upgrade in the look and feel of the place. it helps to address one of our complaints about the F-Pace when it first came out. “One of the F-Pace’s weaknesses is that some of the cabin plastics feel like they belong in a much cheaper car,” we wrote in 2016.

There’s a stubby new gearlever (the old rotary gear selector is history), the headrests are embossed with the Jag leaper, there’s more stowage space than before and you get a new steering wheel, plucked from the cockpit of the electric I-Pace. Wireless phone charging is now one of the F-Pace’s tricks.

Speaking of digital bits, there’s a new 11.4-inch touchscreen infotainment system, straight out of the Land Rover Defender. No surprise there, as the F-Pace sits on Jaguar Land Rover’s D7a platform, versions of which also support most of the Land Rover and Range Rover lineup. The system looks good, is fairly straightforward to use, plays nice with Apple and Android phones and can be updated over-the-air.

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As before, the F-Pace’s claim to fame is its aluminium construction, which helps to keep it light and thus, light on its feet. While it’s been a sharp SUV to drive, the facelift brings suspension changes intended to make it more comfortable. We’ll see about that when we get our paws on one.

Meanwhile the facelift extends the product life of a car that has become a crucial model for Jaguar in Singapore. Last year the F-Pace accounted for 40 percent of sales here, according to Paul Varley, the general manager for Jaguar Land Rover at Wearnes. Mr Varley said he wanted to see a more “balanced spread of sales” for Jaguar, especially after additional new models such as a refreshed version of the E-Pace enter the market here.

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He also announced that customers car order the F-Pace P400e, a plug-in hybrid electric version of the car. It adds a 17.1kWh battery and electric motor to give it around 50km of pure electric range. Perhaps more exciting is its ability to leap to 100km/h in 5.3 seconds, thanks to the combined 404hp output of its petrol and electric hardware. It’s available in Singapore from Wearnes Automotive on an indent basis.

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Jaguar itself is planning to reinvent itself as a maker of electric cars. Chief executive Thierry Bollore, who took up the top job at Jaguar Land Rover in September last year, said in February that Jaguar will be an all-electric brand by 2030 and start to phase out combustion power in 2025. The plug-in version of the F-Pace is presumably for Singaporean buyers who don’t want to wait that long.

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