This is a big enough change in my mind, at least for the R, to separate gens:
Gen 1: MY13-15 (original design, RWD)
Gen 2: MY16-17 (original design, AWD)
Gen 3: MY18-20 (bumper, light changes, AWD)
Gen 4: MY21- (facelift, AWD)

 

Well done Rick.

 

The focus on AWD seems generationally insignificant. Sometimes it's there for some models, sometimes it's not; it comes and goes. In that regard it's like a paint color. I mean, if a MY22 P450 is RWD, why is not a Gen1 car? It doesn"t have anything to do with it not being AWD, right?

 

As mentioned above, there is simply only one single generation of the F-Type, and then there were two facelifts as also indicated above: the 1st one for MY18 and the 2nd one for MY21. To me it's just plain wrong to talk about generations because there was clearly just one generation with incremental changes. It feels like a mainly US thing to talk about "gens" of cars. Looking at terms used in the past by Jaguar for e.g. the E-Type and original XJ talking about Mark or Mk (1, 2, 3...) would feel more relevant.

Both facelifts included many more changes than mentioned above. The 1st facelift was arguably the biggest bump in terms of features under the skin during the F-Type's life span while the 2nd facelift had the biggest exterior changes.

And then to confuse things further, other minor changes were also added throughout the model years independently of the two facelifts. Stuff like the improved interior plastics, different infotainment versions, different fonts and colors of badges, hydraulic vs electric steering, different exhaust valves, different available colors of pieces of the interior, symposer vs no symposer vs software symposer and the list goes on. Then there were all the "special editions" over the years which all were entirely cosmetic except the 400 which was entirely cosmetic + a tune with 20 extra horses at the top end.

Pretty confusing but I think that was just Jaguar's way of developing their cars over time without as much precision around model years and specs as the Germans because of the much lower volumes and more limited resources. As Ian Callum, Mike Cross and the others explained in a long video they started out with a base and then wanted to mimic the 911 setup with different flavors of the car added over time, which they did much more incrementally than in terms of model years.

Fully agree about that there's still surprisingly much ignorance and confusion even among F-Type owners. One really common thing is that people miss that there was a 1st facelift. Another weird one which keeps popping up is confusion about the different versions of hood vents and thinking it has anything to do with model year or whether a car was an R or not. Confusion about the time limited cosmetic packages, like thinking that the 400 included any mechanical differences, also is pretty common.

Maybe F-Type owners aren't as nerdy and precise about the specs as say Porsche owners. And maybe it's just trickier to keep track of the development for Jags than for German cars because it wasn't as precisely communicated.

Here's an awesome book on the topic: It doesn't cover the last years after the 2nd facelift though but then again relatively little happened development wise then. It's been years since I read it but if I recall correctly not even the author of that book got everything right because the changes were so hard to follow.

 

 

Well said. I would be in to drop the “facelift” terminology in favor of Mk1/2/3. It works the same as “gen” but with more cultural correctness. Thinking about Jag culture, don’t we talk about the XJ as “series” variants? Meh, “mark” is just dandy by me!

I also totally agree that because of the constant evolution, the only really relevant series markers are the visible ones, so the two facelifts…hereafter known as Mk2 and Mk3. Or should we use Roman numerals?! 😁

 

Ah, you're absolutely right, I was thinking of "series" and not "mark" when it comes to the E-Type and XJ6. Mk was obviously also used for older Jags and feels pretty common for other British cars too so that'll do just fine for the F-Type.