End Notes

Motoring through Spain in Jaguar’s last purely internal-combustion-engined sports car.

- Robin Swithinbank

I SUPPOSE THIS is it. The beginning of the end. No, not even that. The end of the end. Before me, poised like a scorpion on a hot rock and looking slick in Ligurian satin black, is Jaguar’s F-Type R75 Coupe, a 567hp, 5.0-litre clenched fist of supercharged V8. It looks fantastic. Like it would pick a fight in a nunnery. It’s also the last sports car fit solely with an internal-combustion engine that the British marque will ever make, 75 years after its first, the peerless XK120. Strange and heavy words to write.

We’ve known for years that the automotive sector would be sending petrol-guzzling cars the way of sunbeds, but even so, Jaguar’s clean-sheet strategy feels all too soon. Its electrified fleet is due in 2025, along with a complete brand reboot about which we know next to nothing, save that average on-the-road prices are set to enter six-figure territory. Jaguar’s sales have been sluggish for years, and the automaker has decided that the only way to dig itself out is through lithium mines.