Jaguar will decide in a matter of weeks whether to produce the C-X16 sports car.
With its subtle stylistic link to the classic Jaguar E-Type, the British maker’s C-X16 concept has been winning rave reviews in recent months and company officials appear poised to give the show car the go for production “before the end of the year,” according to a senior Jaguar official.
A final decision will likely depend on the response the C-X16 gets when it goes on display at this week’s L.A. Auto Show, where it will vie for attention alongside the maker’s new XKR-S sports coupe. Should management give the show car the nod it would almost certainly reach showrooms sometime during the 2013 calendar year, company officials confirmed.
In production, Jaguar’s global brand boss Adrian Hallmark tells TheDetroitBureau.com, it is highly likely that a special high-performance plug-in hybrid system will be among the C-X16’s powertrain options. But Jaguar officials also stressed that the production version would likely lose a few of the distinctive features of the concept car, notably including the swing-open hatchback.
There are hints of E-Type, but the C-X16 concept has a distinct and more modern look, contends design chief Ian Callum.
“It won’t take long” to make a formal decision, stressed Hallmark, following a preview of the Jaguar C-X16 prior to the opening of the 2011 Los Angeles International Auto Show. “By the end of the year it will be either green or red,” and after studying the response on the auto show circuit and in private customer clinics, the British executive added, things appear to be going in favor of the C-X16.
The show car is part of an aggressive effort to demonstrate “we’re moving into the 21st Century,” said Ian Callum, the long-time Jaguar design chief. “We’re no longer retro. We’re no longer historic. We’re now a very modern company.”
Some of the concept's more unusual features, like the side-opening hatchback, probably wouldn't make it to production, Jaguar official acknowledge.
During his presentation on a Hollywood soundstage, Callum initially shied away from any comparison to the classic Jaguar E-Type, which has been celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. But while he insisted his goal was not to “re-do” the legendary sports car, Callum acknowledged its DNA is subtly apparent in the C-X16 concept car, especially when viewed from the rear.
Jaguar designers aimed to avoid the sort of excess “sculpting” seen on many recent concept sports cars, Callum admitting he occasionally angered his design time by avoiding excess lines and creases, settling on just three distinctive lines in the show car:
- One stretching from the front fenders rearward;
- Another flowing over the rear fenders; and
- The third giving a strong arc to the C-X16’s roof.
A high-performance plug-in hybrid system will likely be carried over into production.
The face of the prototype shares some of the basic, quite modern details, such as the yawning grille, of the most recent Jaguar XF and XK models.
One of the C-X16’s most distinctive features is the side-opening tailgate which is “feasible but not practical enough for a production car,” admitted Callum. Jaguar brand boss Hallmark also suggested that the show car’s small side mirrors and carbon fiber wheel blades would likely be changed for production.
But if the C-X16 does make it to Jaguar showrooms it will almost certainly feature a basic V-6 powertrain, very possibly a V-8 and almost certainly a variation on the show car’s hybrid powertrain theme. That would mean a lithium-ion-powered plug-in hybrid, said Hallmark, capable of operating in “three distinct modes.”
The distinctive red interior of the C-X16 concept.
It would be able to provide an owner the opportunity to run medium distances, perhaps 20 or 30 miles, on battery power alone. It could operate primarily on gasoline power with the electric motors helping improve fuel economy like a conventional hybrid. And most tantalizingly, it could use the hybrid drive in a manner similar to the KERS system used in Formula One racing.
In that mode, said Hallmark, the engine would be able to provide “a 10-second boost with the electric motor, adding another 95 horsepower and 235 Newton-meters of torque” on top of the base V-6’s 380 hp.
“It would just be ballistic,” suggested Hallmark.
As for pricing, Hallmark hints the C-X16 would drop in somewhere between the high end of the Porsche Cayman and low end of the German maker’s new 911 — which starts at around $83,000.