The Tweaked Jaguar F-Pace Has A New 400bhp Straight-Six

Although it didn’t make a whole lot of fiscal sense, we always had a soft spot for the old petrol Jaguar F-Pace S. It made a surprisingly good racket out of its tailpipes - accompanied by a satisfying supercharger whine - and with 375bhp on tap, it was no slouch either. But with Jaguar killing off its 3.0-litre V6 a few years ago, it was a short-lived derivative.

Finally, though, there’s a replacement, neatly plugging the sizeable gap between the P300 and the SVR V8 rocketship. It features six cylinders, but this time, they’re arranged in a line.

It’s the same Ingenium-based straight-six which has been slowly making its way across the Land Rover range, here makings its Jaguar debut. We don’t know whether or not the 3.0-litre turbo lump would make its way to other models, but we hope so.

The mild hybrid-supported six develops 395bhp, making for a 0-60mph time of 5.1 seconds. This time it’s called the ‘P400’ rather than ‘S’, the latter designation now being used for Jaguar’s entry-level trim gauge across multiple models.

It isn’t the most powerful version of the facelifted F-Pace - that honour goes to the 400bhp P400e plug-in hybrid, which mixes a 2.0-litre inline-four petrol engine with a 17.1kWh battery pack and an electric motor. It’ll do 0-60mph a tenth faster than the P400, and can travel up to 32 miles on electricity alone. There’s also a mild hybrid straight-six diesel producing 297bhp, a 2.0-litre four-pot oil-burner in two states of tune, and a 247bhp inline-four petrol.

Exterior changes are reasonably subtle, with the most obvious being the fresh LED front light clusters and the redesigned grille, giving the F-Pace’s front more of an I-Pace vibe. On that subject, there’s an I-Pace-style steering wheel in the cabin, along with a drastically improved dashboard design incorporating a new infotainment system and a new gear selector in place of the weird rotary thing Jaguar has been quietly dropping from its models.

There are some new things you can’t see, too, including over-the-air update capability, something called ‘Active Road Noise Cancellation’, and improved cabin air filtration.

The F-Pace now starts at £40,860 for the lowest spec 161bhp D165, rising to £64,490 for the P400e in loaded-up HSE trim. It’s on sale now.