Just look all around you the next time you drive anywhere.

 

It's obvious that most of us already had nice cars, and a lot of sports cars. But I bet once we saw the F Type we started to try to find a way to get one or justify buying another car! Eventually to keep interest as model ages most models will be offered.

 

So no one since every F-Type I've seen on the road wasn't crashed.

 

I think the marketing researchers dictate what they believe will sell more cars. That''s what has been driving BMW'''s direction for years.

 

And those w/ crashed F-Types aren't likely to be the types to hang on car forums and certainly not likely to broadcast it on the internet. However, many of those incompetent drivers all around you likely have the means to lease one.

As a matter of fact, I don't remember a single serious crash reported here other than a couple that were someone else's fault.

 

Pretty terrible business decision to limit product offerings based on stereotypes of your potential customers, such as "Americans can't drive".

This decision was absolutely made based on market research and profitability.

 

This sounds a lot like you are equating wealth with driving competence.

I don't see a correlation there.

edit - I do agree with you on the plethora of terrible drivers, however. I really wish drivers education was increased here in the States.

 

That was not at all my intent, and there is no correlation. What I meant was there is a broad economic demographic capable of getting into an F-Type R. There are certainly a lot of incompetent wealthy drivers as well.

 

Pretty much. The external dimensions of the V8 and V6 blocks in the F-types are the same. I have no idea if the bores are in your V6 and just unused or if they just cast a big void at the front of the engine. For that matter, I don't know what exactly they do to make the V8 into a V6 other than different heads, intakes and exhausts. I do know that the V6 is derived from the 5.0 V8 and it's the same block externally. Google it.

 

Ah, gotcha. I clearly misread your intent, apologies.

 

+1 i still fail to see the issue with a 550hp rwd car, it's really not alot of power by modern standards. in fact its lagging on paper imo, should be a 600+ car

i had no issue driving the demo rwd r on greasy wet roads in the hills, and ive become accustomed to only driving high power awd cars on the same roads over the last 5 years. sure i couldn't bury the throttle mid corner, but i wasn't having to get all out of shape for a camera and viewer hits. i found it quite fun and engaging having to balance throttle, added another dimension to the drive i had taken for granted

but i imagine the convo would've gone something like this....

"say old chap, i hear those american lads find it hard to drive rwd in a straight line....yes best we give them the awd only so we don't get sued"

 

I hit a deer in my V8S at around 50-60 mph. I got a new car out of it. Horsepower was not a factor and I would not call it a serious crash. I barely felt it. Time of day, location, lots of deer was a factor. My fault for being where I was when I was and that's about it. I did learn that the car is very easy to total out. Fragile. Hard to fix. Expensive. Slow parts delivery. Almost enough to keep me from replacing the car but not quite.

There was a post on here where someone tried to exit off a freeway at he last minute in the rain and lost it into a concrete divider. I don't think AWD or less power would have helped him. So no, from what I can tell the RWD cars are not crashing all over the place and certainly not the V8 more than the V6.

We don't get the RWD V8R in the U.S. though. Unless JLR changes its marketing, I am keeping the car I have instead of getting a new one in a few years. A terrible marketing decision. Many RWD buyers don't want AWD. Many, if not most, V8 buyers won't buy a V6 the second time around just so they can stay in a RWD car. I don't care how "good" the AWD system is. I prefer the dynamics of RWD and probably JLR lost a repeat customer.

 

think there's a huge misconception about what awd can and cannot do

for starters making a sudden lane maneuver on the freeway in awd or rwd (assuming rear biased as per f-type) will have same results

the f-type is only sending drive to the front wheels when accelerating at the point where rear wheels are/about to lose traction

 

They should sell both here. I'm not in the market for one and even though my roots are in tail sliding muscle cars, I'd probably go with the AWD though.

 

So I check in at the forum after a couple weeks and find it littered with jeremiads about the F-Type's tech lag, obligatory AWD in the R, too much of this, not enough of that.

I too could list the features I have but didn't want, and those I wanted but didn't get. This would be true of any other car that I might have purchased. I bought the F-Type because, on balance, it was the best. And you too—I'm speaking to the complainers—chose your F-type because it was the best option. If it hadn't been, you would have chosen something else, as you will if there's something better when the time comes for your next car.

If your point is that the F-Type isn't perfect, point taken... but it didn't need to be made.

If your point is that the F-Type needs x but shouldn't have y in order to be your next pick, fair enough. Maybe the suits at JLR read this forum. My guess is that they take a peek once in a while, but that they also do some market research. So they know that opinions expressed here might actually not be representative, and that for every potential buyer who wants x but not y, there are 2.3 others who would never buy a car lacking y but couldn't care less about x. And since they're suits, they presumably know something about manufacturing costs. So they know that x, y, z... can't all be options.

**********

I love my F-Type. If only the ambient lighting had a yellow option...

 

LOL . . . well said, Frenchy. I agree that the opinions of the people frequently participating here are NOT representative of the broader demographic, and I'm sure their market research is much more accurate.

 

The cylinder bores are entirely different sizes in the V6 and V8. 5.0L/8=62.5cc. 3.0L/6=50cc. Ironically, even the base V6 produces more HP per liter than the V8R version, which has led many to theorize that the V6 is nearly maxed out power-wise in it's current configuration. It's also apparent that the V8 has more room to grow as evidenced by JLR's plans to push the SVR to 600.

Of course, that begs the question of why couldn't JLR go to a bigger bore for the V6 since they are using the same block. I find that puzzling unless they just don't care to do so given the new Ingenium engines in the pipeline.

It also seems like we V6 folks are lugging around a lot of unnecessary engine block weight for no good reason.

 

The car companies swing and miss quite a bit. Prime example is when Ford put front wheel drive in the new Lincolns when their market is all old guys who wanted a conventional RWD luxury cruiser. I think sales dropped about 90% from the town car (90,000/yr.) to the MKZ (about 8,500/yr.) Another example would be Porsche trying to replace the 911 with the 928. Pontiac Aztek? Really? These mistakes still happen.

The bigger the company, the more committees and meetings, the worse they seem to do on building truly special cars.

I think the original vision of the F-type, before the bean counters and market researchers got ahold of it was probably lighter, quicker, smaller, prettier and generally more true what an E-type successor should have been. At least they got the exhaust note right. Thanks Ducati.

Instead of building what the visionaries penned and the customers had been waiting for, JLR sat on it for 7 or 8 years, taking stuff out and adding more stuff in until the car turned into a bloated semi-GT minus trunk space, with a fairly crappy ride quality and a set of sporty looking but uncomfortable seats. With no oil pressure gauge, a fake water temp gauge and an automatic transmission.

If JLR listens to the people who actually bought one and who live with it day after day they might eventually refine it into the sports car it should have been, perhaps with an optional comfort package for the repeat customers who wanted a faster prettier GT to replace their existing Xkr.

I'm going to keep mentioning what I want them to build in the hopes that someone at JLR is listening.

 

A slight correction: the 5.0 liter V8 has 625 cc/per cylinder and the V6 has 500 cc/cylinder. They have different cylinder volumes, so either the piston sizes are different, or the heads are closer on the V6, or both, because the compression ratios are 9.5/1 for the V8 and 10.5/1 for the V6.

Nookieman's comment has been a quandary to me. I find it near incredible that Jaguar would use the same cast block and cut fewer bores to make the V6 to save money, but I certainly don't know what they do. But they didn't just plug two cylinders; that doesn't work per the above. And, the crankshafts have to be weighted differently, etc., where are the savings? Maybe they use the same pistons and rings? Does it all amount to just the same mounting points on the chassis? Lugging a lot of extra weight in the V6 was exactly my thought. Oh!

 

Just because the v6 has a smaller per cylinder capacity doesn't mean it has a smaller bore. It could also have the same bore and a shorter stroke. Which would make it easier to get more power per liter since the piston speed would be lower at higher rpm.