Jaguar F-Type review - Practicality, comfort and boot space

You don’t buy a two-seater sports car for its boot space, and the F-Type has certainly substituted practicality for style.

But while there isn’t lots of space for luggage, the driver and passenger should be very comfortable. Even owners standing well over six feet tall can find a suitable driving position, thanks to a full range of adjustment from the comfy yet supportive sports seats and grippy steering wheel. 

You sit low in the car, though, which means the extremities are hard to see during close-quarter manoeuvres. Jaguar has rather sensibly included a reversing camera as standard, as it’s quite difficult to judge where that shapely tail ends.

A deep storage bin and twin cup-holders on the centre console provide plenty of room for housing odds and ends on the move. The slim doors feature decent pockets, and the glovebox is a pretty reasonable size, too.

Other practical touches include a soft-top that can be raised or lowered at speeds of up to 30mph, which is very useful in Britain’s changeable climate.

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Size

In terms of dimensions, the F-Type sits somewhere between the compact Porsche Boxster and larger Porsche 911. The Jaguar is 4,470mm long, while the two Porsches measure 4,374mm and 4,481mm respectively.

The F-Type is wider than both, though – at 1,923mm, it’s roughly 12cm wider than the Boxster S and Porsche 911 Turbo. Park the cars side-by-side, and the Jaguar’s roof is also a few millimetres higher than both the Porsches’.

Leg room, head room & passenger space

Luggage space is pretty limited, but the cabin itself feels quite roomy, even though it’s snug and enveloping with the roof up. The F-Type is strictly a two-seater, unlike the Porsche 911, which has the advantage of occasional rear seats, and this might put some potential buyers off the Jaguar.

Boot

The F-Type Convertible has a 132-litre boot, and while the capacity is unaffected by folding the roof, if you add the optional space-saver spare wheel, it takes up all of the room. The F-Type Coupe is a little more practical in this respect, and Jaguar claims it has a 336-litre loadspace, although with the narrow opening and rather shallow dimensions, this could be slightly optimistic. By way of comparison, the Porsche Boxster S' mid-engined configuration allows luggage compartments at both ends, for a total of 280 litres.