Santa Claus came early and delivered the ultimate present under the tree (courtesy of my dear wife): a reservation for 3 days of ice driving with JLR's Ice Academy in Arjeplog, Sweden, this January (1/22-26)... Can't wait to experience the whole thing!

https://www.jaguarusa.com/experience...rive-plus.html

Anyone else here going in the same period? Anyone who went last year (I saw that Nightsounds on this forum had a good time)?

 

That's great. Would love to do that someday soon. Congrats. Santa must have thought you were a very good boy this year

 

Man, What a wife. Sounds like she's a "Keeper"

 

How thoughtful!

 

 

I'm trying to organise 4 people for the Jaguar SVR nurburgring experience, its 1.5 days of driving on the nurburgring with an instructor in their car but they won't allow non German speakers unless we have 4 and then they will get an English speaking instructor - its Eur 2450 including hotel and use of their car on the circuit so its not cheap, but let me know if you are interested, we have 3, just need one more

 

how is the date ?

 

Aug 5/6th, you'd need to have prior track day experience, (as they want you to do the boring entry level course first but can get round that with the right experience) there is more info (in German) on www.jaguar.de and then on the jaguar experience page, let me know if interested, the other guys are from the F Type owners facebook group where i've put more info

 

I have the same issue... hard to know what to plan for. Will let you know when I return.

 

I haven't been, but know it's seriously cold.

see this information

 

 

Oops. Good girl! Sorry was not very observant!

 

Your original post was correct Mbourne... I am indeed a boy (ok, nearly an old man), and my wife is a Ť keeper ť, as I concluded when I met her 29 years ago!

 

Back from the Jaguar Ice Academy... still in Stockholm, but thought I would share from the airport. This was one of the best experiences of my life, and I would encourage all those who can do it to seriously consider it, it was an absolute blast from start to finish. I could do this every day for the next 6 months.

Compliments to JLR. They really pulled all the stops. I know this is expensive, but there is no way they make money on it, has to come from their marketing expense. We were 24 participants, they had 9 driving instructors and 3 JLR coordinators, 4 operations / organizers, a reserved lounge with 2 dedicated waiters, 6 Range Rover Sport, 6 Range Rover Discovery, 6 Velars, 6 F-Pace, 6 V6 F-Types, 6 F-Type R and 6 F-Type SVR... they had rented a whole lake with guys plowing the tracks every day and creating circuits, a cabin / lounge by the lake, great food / wine / room... overall, amazing setting.

You need to dress the part. It was -24C (-11F) when I got to Arjeplog, and I thought I was going to freeze to death on the spot when I got out of the car in my NY clothes. It got to -32C (-26F) the following morning! You could (nearly) do it with regular winter clothes because you are chauffeured from the hotel to the cabin by the lake, and then can potentially run from one car to another as you switch vehicles during the day, but it will be very limiting. If you want to experience the whole thing, and go take a look at the aurora borealis, walk around the lounge to see the cars, get out of your F-Type to go ask questions to the instructors... or anything else, you need (i) serious winter boots, but not too wide because you will use them to drive and press the pedals; (ii) long underpants and wool socks; (iii) thermal shirt, thermal fleece and a serious coat; (iv) a wool hat; (v) gloves. Nothing too bulky besides the coat, because you will be otherwise cramped in the F-Type. Bring sunglasses, as the sun does not rise much and you have to deal with a permanent sunrise/sunset in the few hours of daylight, which means the sun reflects on the ice and you can’t see much without glasses.

You will learn a lot about your car. By the end of the second day, you can tell whether your DSC is on, off or in TrackDSC just by how the car reacts in corners (seriously!). You will learn that taking a corner on ice in a RWD requires the exact opposite handling than for a AWD... you will feel what gear you are in by how you pull from corners. This was incredibly surprising (to me at least, I am not an experienced driver).

You will learn a lot about driving. I am sure many of you are expert drivers, but around mid-day on the second day, it just clicked for me. How to swing the car around a corner by alternating taps on the brakes, little pushes on the throttle and lifting the gas pedal while flicking the wheel just became something natural... just like when you finally learn to ride a bike. Then the fun really starts and you find yourself pushing your F-Type at full throttle to 80mph while looking at where you are going through the passenger window. Absolute blast. Take the three day experience if you can afford the time and money... you will have finally clicked on the second day, and the third day will be absolute pleasure (if you leave too early, you will miss the fun of knowing how to do it but not having the chance to finally do it).

The people are great. The JLR staff were truly the most friendly and hospitable bunch. The instructors were top notch (ex Formula 3 drivers, GT racers etc.) and a pleasure to learn from. The participants were all car fanatics from all walks of life and all countries (we had a few Australians, a Turkish fellow, an Italian, three Germans, a Brit, 5 Americans, a few Indians)... all into cars, no snobs allowed.

Truly fantastic experience.

 

Thankyou so much for that - really helpful. Just for info of others I asked Jag whether I should take winter boots and light shoes to drive and they said yes that's the best thing to do....

Looking forward to next month!

Roger

 

Recent coverage.... https://www.pocket-lint.com/cars/new...en-lake-we-did

 

 

Would love to do that someday soon.

 

I never did the ICE Academy, but I did do the E-Type and F-Type Driving Experience at Fen End, Warwickshire. While not as involved, it was a really wonderful experience being able to drive a classic and a future classic back to back and the onsite museum had some amazing pieces of Jaguar history. The test drivers I rode with were charming and knowledgeable. I highly recommend it.