Jag's E-Pace Puts The Sport Into SUV

REVEALED F-Pace’s baby brother leans heavily on sporty F-Type for inspiration and Austrian-built newcomer will see a return to front-wheel drive for firm

- Steve Fowler

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YOU wait years for a Jaguar SUV, then three come along in quick succession. It was little over a year ago that the F-Pace arrived, winning the 2016 Auto Express Car of the Year Award in the process. Then we saw the stunning I-Pace electric SUV concept unveiled at last year’s Los Angeles Show; it’s due to go on sale next year.

But beating it into showrooms will be this, the new E-Pace, which sits unsurprisingly below the F-Pace in the line-up and arrives in the first few months of 2018 with prices starting at £28,500.

It also heralds a couple of firsts: it’ll be the first Jaguar to be built outside of the UK (at Magna Steyr’s plant in Graz, Austria), and it’s also the first Jaguar to be available with front-wheel drive since the X-Type.

Jaguar is keen for the E-Pace not to be pigeonholed as a baby F-Pace, though, with references to the F-Type sports car evident in the SUV’s interior and exterior design. “I wanted the relationship with the F-Type to be more obvious,” Jaguar’s design director Ian Callum told us.

That said, internally the E-Pace is referred to as the ‘cub’, hinting at the car’s relationship with the F-Pace. That’s also cheekily referenced in a small graphic around the edge of the windscreen with a mother Jaguar being followed by her cub; it’s also used in the puddle lighting.

While the E-Pace has a bold, large grille like the F-Pace, the more upright all LED front lights are more like the F-Type’s, giving the new SUV a look all its own. “Our challenge was to accept all the facts about practicality that are important in this type of car and wrap it in a beautiful design. We want character in all our cars,” Callum said.