Jaguar C-X75 review (2013 prototype)

Jaguar C-X75: summary

A genuine supercar: totally unique in how it delivers exceptional performance, utterly Jaguar in how it handles, altogether stunning in how it looks. 

What: Jaguar C-X75
Date: August 2013
Where: Nurburg, Germany
Price: £900,000 (but you can’t buy one)
Available: Never

Jaguar

Jaguar C-X75: first impressions

The Jaguar C-X75 is a supercar that we’ll never be able to buy. The moment you set eyes on it, you’ll think what shame this is, for first impressions say true supercar. Not scaled-up sports car, not stylistic diversion, but a full-blooded supercar, of LaFerrari or Porsche 918 ilk. It’s stunning.

Yes, even more so than the fantastic Paris Motor Show 2010 concept. In making it production-ready, Jaguar was committed to changing that as little as possible, but the changes it has made only enhance it further.

No other car on the road has a drivetrain like the Jaguar C-X75

The front is crisper and tighter, the rear has even more pure drama, the stance and profile is better and the simple sculptural fluidity of the carbonfibre surfaces is remarkable. It was designed at the same time as the F-type: you can tell. F-type, meet FX-type.

The cabin is positioned well forward but centrally within the wheelbase, and the wide front end is both very low and very short. The sort of wheel at each corner effect you get with a MINI, only on something larger and more potent.

Despite this, it doesn’t appear an overlarge car, and it’s much more economical in profile and packaging than some other supercars, despite the extra holes, slots and ducts needed to keen its drivetrain cool.

Overall, the Jaguar C-X75, developed and built at Williams Advanced Engineering by a team equally made up of engineers from the two firms, is already destined to become a Top Trump ‘supercar that never was’. It has that look about it.

Can we find any solace in it not being the real deal on the road, then?

Err, no…

Jaguar

Jaguar C-X75: performance

No other car on the road has a drivetrain like the Jaguar C-X75. It is a hybrid and gives EV-only running via an electric motor on each axle. A massive Nissan LEAF-sized battery enables them to each produce 195hp and drive the C-X75 in pure EV mode.

Performance is sensational: 0-62mph in less than 3 seconds, 0-100mph in less than 6 seconds

Which we sampled, discovering a fast and immediate car with deceptive speed due to the lack of engine noise. A sound synthesiser adds the effects you normally hear in sci-fi films but, even though they’re dependent on accelerator position, it still feels odd. That the C-X75 can offer 400hp pace in zero emissions mode will be enough for most.

The 1.6-litre four-cylinder supercharged andturbocharged engine adds the supercar bit. And this isn’t any old 1.6 turbo swiped from a Ford Fiesta ST. It’s one that produces 502 hp. Yes, 313hp per litre. And can rev to 10,300rpm. Yes, a five-figure redline. It is a genuine firework of a powerplant that makes the C-X75 utterly unique and incredibly effective.

Performance is sensational. Hypercar fast. Stomach left back down the road fast. 0-62mph in less than 3 seconds, 0-100mph in less than 6, delivered without delay.

Acceleration is sharp, linear and abundant – yet, thanks to the all-wheel drive and incredibly complicated transitions constantly being made beneath you, ever-consistent (despite the headsnap-gulps as a new gear is paddleshift-selected). One great force with a nuclear engine at its core and innumerate systems to electrify it further.

Does it sound the part? From the outside, undoubtedly. It is like a racing car at high revs – no road car has such an exhaust note of that intensity and pitch. From inside? Frankly, it sounds like a Rover K-Series-engined Lotus Elise at tickover, but we’re sure Jaguar would have worked on that bit. Certainly it would have kept the turbine smooth howl at high revs, though. If supercars were fitted with superbike engines, this is how they would sound: clean, mechanical, sharp and, well, wonderfully different.

It all adds up to a very modern sort of supercar. It’s not bound by traditions, doesn’t have to sound a certain way, doesn’t have to use a particular engine. Which means what it has is the most effective technology needed to make it go as fast as possible in the most effective way those F1-grade engineers know. It’s duly fascinating and brilliant as a result.

Jaguar

Jaguar C-X75: ride and handling

Jaguar and Williams underplay the car’s suspension. It has double wishbones front and rear, electric power steering, adaptive dampers: all known technology used, they say, because it was simple. The hard bit was in the powertrain so time couldn’t be diverted to a 22nd century chassis.

It devours corners yet feels viceless. Exactly what you want when 850hp is delivered in an eyeblink

Well, if this is what they can do when they’re not trying… the C-X75 is a peach to drive, and feels every inch a Jaguar, from the fluid breathability of the ride to the fingertip delicacy of the steering. It’s precise, easy and confident.

For once, it’s no cliché to say it devours corners, either. So far forward are the occupants sat, and so centralised are the masses, turn-in is immediate and the ability to hold a line and feel magnetically driven through it really is striking.

Particularly as it’s enhanced by four-wheel drive, with the electrified front axle pulling you round with the intensity you’d expect of a torque-laden high-power electric-drive system. Boot the throttle and it immediately generates mid-corner g-forces you wouldn’t believe.

Most importantly, though, the C-X75 is chuckable, balanced and exceedingly confident. It feels viceless and is decidedly non-aggressive in nature. Which is exactly what you want when 850hp can be delivered in an eyeblink.

Jaguar

Jaguar C-X75: interior

If the exterior of the C-X75 is 90% production ready, the interior is less than 60% there. Compared to the clean concept, it feels like Jaguar’s taken elements of the F-type, blended them into a cockpit that is exciting in the way it’s positioned so far forward and flooded with exposed carbon fibre.

As fast as a Bugatti Veyron with the EV range of a Chevrolet Volt and the CO2 of a Toyota Prius

This is Jaguar’s first carbon fibre monocoque, the same sort of advanced design used by the McLaren 12C, but still needs work to make it the match of a Porsche.

But hey, this is a concept. And the fundamentals are right, not least the radically low seating position and panoramic windscreen that mimics the McLaren P1 for drama. The doors are very cool, too, and cutaway sills mean it’s easy to step in and out, if not to actually close the door behind you.

What’s missing are the supercar details to match the amazing way it drives. It feels a bit too much like the Jaguar parts bin has been raided (which it has) and that more bespoke bits are needed to make the cabin as jewel-like as the rest of it (which they would have been).

Oh, and don’t ask about luggage space. This car has such ferocious demands for cooling, there are no less than 14 radiators. Even the washer bottle reservoir had to fight for space…

Jaguar

Jaguar C-X75: economy

A fantastically modern way to do a supercar, all electrified intensity overlaid with organic Jaguar feel

Jaguar was insistent. It had to look like the concept and be as fast as a Bugatti Veyron – but also have the EV range of a Chevrolet Volt and emit as little CO2 as a Toyota Prius.

Oh, and be able to drive from the Jaguar engineering centre in Coventry, switch to EV mode at Heathrow, go on to Canary Wharf and back again, then switch the engine on for the return trot to Whitley – all on one tank and one charge.

All boxes have been ticked, Jaguar and Williams say: 89g/km, 75mpg and 37 miles’ electric-only running. A supercar without guilt. Which, given the ferocity of that amazing engine when on full song, many would have considered the most amazing aspect of all.