Jaguar F-Pace vs the rivals

In 2013, Jaguar flashed a light show and billowed dry ice over the C-X17, and tried this hard [finger and thumb so close they’re touching] to pretend to the public it was only a concept. Ha ha. Ever since, off-record briefings have spun us the line that Jaguar would come to the crossover party with something late but great. The best to look at, the best to drive. Throughout those three years Top Gear has arched an eyebrow and replied “We’ll be the judge of that.” Well, that moment has arrived. 

Most people are going to end up with a four-cylinder diesel in their F-Pace (the name is silly enough without us capitulating to Jaguar’s insistence on uppercase). But there’s no Macan in that engine format, and Jaguar says its car is fit to be compared with the Porsche. Very well; we’ve moved up to diesel V6s. This gives us the chance to bring in the newly boosted Audi SQ5 Plus. The Jag is roomier inside than those two, so we’ve rounded off the group with a bigger crossover, and one that aims for style too, the Mercedes GLE350d Coupe.

Images: Jamie Lipman

This feature was originally published in issue 284 of Top Gear magazine

We’re in the Peak District National Park. It’s fizzing with the acid green of spring today. In parts of the park, speed cameras outnumber the sheep, so we’re just bowling along, admiring the panoramic vistas from the cars’ high-set seats in the hope of finding comfort, quietness and an easy precision to driving them. But nearby, there are private places where we can safely check out the ‘sports’ claims.

The Jaguar’s 3.0-litre V6 makes 296 horsepower. But it’s harsh when you wind it right up, and in any case has no appetite for going over 4,000rpm. The eight-speed auto doesn’t like the idea of getting a sudden move-on – it sits in a high gear until you nail the accelerator, then the whole car pauses while it hoists its spinnaker and heads off, under full sail and full boost. Better to use the paddles, even if they’re horrid little plastic things rather than the more tactile metal ones in the Macan. Still, the aluminium body makes this the lightest car here, so it gets along well. 

Things are more peaceful in the Macan, even though you have to work it harder because it’s less powerful, at 255bhp. Compared with the Jag, it’s quieter and smoother and more willing to rev too. It pushes through a seven-speed PDK rather than the torque-converter ’box the others use. Usually, PDK ’boxes are quicker to shift, but not so smooth-manoeuvring. Neither applies here.

But Porsche has been outfoxed by brother Audi. The SQ5 takes the same basic V6 and ramps it up to 335bhp. There’s even some saucy sound augmentation if you’re in the dynamic driving mode. It serves its quick-acting power over a wide rev range, right up to 5,000rpm, making it an extremely nice engine for a diesel. A pretty nice engine full stop. Unlike the Porsche it uses an eight-speed auto, because the twin-clutch can’t cope with the Audi’s higher torque.

The Mercedes has nine speeds in its auto ’box, but that can’t compensate for the fact the GLE350d has only as much power as the Porsche, but is the biggest, heaviest car here. It’s an uncouth engine that struggles to keep up with the others. Still, as we’ll see, the chassis finds itself in the same position.

In many ways, the F-Pace’s suspension feels like the closely related new XF, and that can only be a good thing. It’s big, but it’s easy to point accurately, flowing along and hugging the line you thought of. Smooth, open roads suit it well. Even as corners get tighter, it keeps hold of its grace and agility. But the ride is firm, indeed borderline harsh over sharp impacts with the test car’s 22-inch wheels. Those wheels (£1,600 badly spent), the anti-roll stiffness necessary to contain its tall body, and the momentary stiffening of the adaptive dampers to do the same job, all combine to cause gruesome suspension shudders if you’re loading it up in a tight bumpy corner. The sort that aren’t rare in Britain, where Jaguar engineers work. Still, the aluminium body feels perfectly stiff under the assault.

The Macan was Jaguar’s dynamic benchmark. It’s smaller and lower than the F-Pace, ready to hug the road. The test car comes on air suspension with adaptive damping (£1,788). It’s pretty sternly sprung, like the Jaguar, but on its 20-inch wheels it resists the sharp intrusions better. It also shudders in a bumpy corner – there are none near Stuttgart – but it distracts you by playfully wriggling the back end when you summon the turbos. That’s likely thanks to the test car’s £1,011 torque-vectoring diff.

Porsche people bang on endlessly about how little they kept of the Q5, the car they based the Macan on. So the question arises: how come they improved it so little? And when you’ve got all the SQ5 Plus’s extra power, the dynamic advantage returns towards Audi. The SQ5 is passively damped, and feels stiff and lifeless at gentle speeds where the Jaguar is most fluent. But throw the Audi’s chassis a bone, and it chews on it with enthusiasm, offering up an organic feel that kept us coming back for more.

The Mercedes is easy to leave parked. Its low-speed ride is supple, raising hopes that M-B has tuned the GLE Coupe to suit normal drivers, especially normal Mercedes drivers, who surely value placid comfort above frenzied cornering. But it’s probably just an attempt to disguise the fact the GLE sits on an old SUV platform, as opposed, say, to the Jaguar’s new car platform. The absurd over-endowment of 315/40 21 back tyres adds to this Mercedes’ conflicted nature. The heavy underpinnings shimmy away and the cornering is doughy. Turn a knob to firm up the damping and then road shocks start sending a wobbly flex through the whole structure. So even when you’re going gently through the National Park or the suburbs, that messy ride annoys you.

It chews up motorways well, though. They all do. The Jaguar is quietest of them at a cruise. Its Harman-branded stereo is tight in the bass but gritty in the treble. The one in the Mercedes, also Harman, is better. The Audi has a £535-option B&O that sounds smoother than the £6,000 B&O in the A8, and the Porsche’s Bose is fine too.

The Mercedes is not without advantages. Some people like its style. I did, when first I saw it. It is, after all, a coupe-SUV that doesn’t resemble a BMW X6. But then its silhouette started to put me in mind of a bulldog having a squat, and it all fell to pieces. It’s a pointlessly cartoonish sort of vehicle – the side steps are the wrong height to step on and so just wipe road muck onto your calves, and the Mercedes grille emblem is the diameter of the rings of Saturn. Surely we’ve reached peak badge? 

Inside, coupe roofline or not, the Mercedes is roomy – well, it’s big outside – mostly very nicely put together, if a little baroque for our taste. But what’s not to love about heated and cooled cupholders, illuminated red or blue accordingly? The screen system has nice graphics and friendly menus, and the driver assists (too many of them optional, given this is a £70k Mercedes-Benz) work as intended. Or maybe the intention wasn’t to allow you to open a sandwich packet with both hands while in the outside lane?

Porsche’s new infotainment system lifts the Macan cabin, putting all that stuff onto a brilliant screen with intuitive swiping and pinching. But because this is a Porsche, the car’s dynamic options are on separate hard keys down by your trouser pocket. There are so many on this well-optioned test Macan that finding the right one is like playing Rachmaninoff’s Second blindfolded. The info display on the right hand of the three main dials is similarly overloaded: it cycles through no fewer than 11 home screens, each of which has several sub-displays to choose from. Still, the whole cabin is beautifully assembled. Porsche didn’t just reskin the Audi cabin; they took major steps to Porschify it, like moving the heater controls, vents and ignition key. 

The Audi’s is the oldest cabin, clearly a last-gen A4. But that’s no bad thing. It’s still well-made and simple to use, it’s been updated in critical places such as the MMI, and everything you might need or reasonably want is standard or a surprisingly reasonable option. The diamond-stitched seats that come with the Plus pack give it a lift. This is a smaller car than the Jaguar and so is the Porsche that uses its architecture. More snug in front, more cramped in the back seat and boot. The Q5’s outside styling, unlike the Macan’s, is clearly getting on a bit, and in this company it matters.

The F-Pace looks 100 per cent the modern Jaguar. But it’d be a disaster if it appealed only to Jaguar buyers. There aren’t enough of them. So it’s got to penetrate the consciousness of repeat German customers. The exterior is something close to a triumph. 

Inside, the F-Pace is roomy and useful. The back seat and boot clearly beat the Audi and Porsche, its price rivals. But in parts of the F-Pace cabin – some of the gadgetry and the materials – you wish they’d spent another quid. The test car’s navigation is standard-fit but clunky. A properly 2016-competitive new Pro nav/comm/apps setup is optional.

It would be easy to say avoid the Mercedes, even without mentioning the price. It’s £20k-odd more than the others, which makes its early bath even more inevitable. Wait for the GLC Coupe, we say. The GLC is a better car than the GLE, so the same should apply to the Coupe. But the rest of this group are harder to put in order.

The Porsche is a Porsche and is the most sporty through a set of corners. But it’s little more so than the Audi is, and it’s hobbled by a notable power deficit. Honestly, we enjoyed driving the Audi more on interesting roads. (Even if we know we’d have enjoyed a quick estate more again.) But y’know, give people a choice between a time-worn-looking Audi and a modern Porsche, and they won’t be long making their decision, whether or not Top Gear tells them they should make the opposite one.

For all of Jaguar’s three-year hullabaloo about the F-Pace being a great sports crossover, it shows ragged edges when you really wring it out. The engine is gruff and the suspension crunchy on the optional 22s. But that said, in normal driving (especially on this trim’s standard 20s) it shows a refinement and a finely honed fluency that really draws you in. Plus its strong, light structure means it can give the agility and performance to the driver, but space for everyone else. So the Jaguar wins, but not for quite the reasons you might have been expecting these past three years.