New Jaguar GT prototype review: big promise, but not the finished article… yet

Verdict

Jaguar says it is still fine-tuning the GT’s software before customer cars are nailed down, and with a few small tweaks we’ve every confidence it will be a revered all-rounder. Its high-speed performance, ride comfort and refinement already impress, but an inability to truly utilise the car’s myriad drive modes and menus means we’ll need to reserve judgement on its dynamic prowess for a little while longer.

It might feel like Jaguar is dragging out the launch of its new all-electric four-door GT, and our staggered experiences – first from the passenger seat, and latterly on the frozen lakes of northern Sweden – would appear to confirm that. 

But when you consider that the firm’s entire rebrand has come from a clean sheet of paper first laid out at the start of the Covid pandemic, the six-year development programme seems better justified. The covers will finally come off in September, before deliveries commence early next year.

So following our cold-weather acclimatisation drive, we were invited to try the new Jaguar GT on tarmac at the company’s test facility in Gaydon, Warks. This is a key milestone in the car’s development and shows that the team behind the project are now confident enough with their progress to let us have a proper go. 

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Jon Darlington, JEA (Jaguar Electric Architecture) chief engineer, tells us the camouflaged late-stage prototype we’re driving is “100 per cent accurate for hardware, and around 70 per cent complete for software”, but that they’ve “still got tuning to do”.

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With this in mind, JLR’s product character and performance manager – and our co-pilot for the day – Navid Shamshiri, reiterates that the GT we’re driving is fixed in its default comfort-oriented drive mode, with no opportunity to flick through to the proposed eco or dynamic settings this time around. It’s also on all-season tyres, though the standard-fit 23-inch wheels should give us a good sense of ride and refinement.

Setting off, we immediately appreciate the advantages of the Jag GT’s rear-wheel steering system. While the six degrees of angle on the back axle is nothing of note, Darlington tells us that the front wheels are capable of turning up to 43 degrees – more than any Jaguar to date. Together, they make the 5.2m-long electric car feel like a supermini.

Moving around at low speeds, the GT does a great job of isolating you from the outside world. Sure, JLR’s sanitised test track doesn’t offer the hustle and bustle of a major town or city, but nor is it silent and free of disturbance. The driving position, with the tall centre console and low-slung seats, ensures you feel cocooned – only emphasised by the lack of a back window and, for that matter, any kind of conventional rear-view mirror.

Production cars will get a hi-tech, low-set, camera-controlled display on top of the dashboard, but for now that is covered up, so we’re forced to rely on the door mirrors to know what’s going on behind us. Shamshiri ensures us that the digital set-up they’ve developed is much more intuitive than previous efforts, and requires fewer focal adjustments in real-world use.

As our speed rises, that cosseting, cocooned feeling continues. The steering has a decent weight to it, and the throttle map is sufficiently damped so as to not make the car feel jerky or unsettled when you put your foot down. Yet there is clearly plenty of power available as you extend the right pedal, with a strong surge of torque well past the national speed limit.

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Jaguar’s team of esteemed engineers wanted the car to feel commanding and powerful even at the top end. So where other EVs tail off at 100mph or more, the GT continues to pull. Shamshiri encourages us to try accelerating from a steady three-figure cruise – and the way this 2.7-tonne electric four-door picks up instantly proves its ability to eat up autobahns for breakfast. Refinement, with the exception of a little whistle around the door mirrors, seems imperious, and easily as good as an equivalent Bentley or Porsche.

Another pleasing attribute is range. While a lot of the screens were darkened during our drive, as we got in we noted the trip readout showing 349 miles at 82 per cent state of charge. This dropped to 323 miles and 77 per cent after our stint which, given the high speeds and unsympathetic driving style, didn’t seem too bad at all. We’ll need a longer drive over more familiar roads for a true efficiency assessment.

Our only real gripe, therefore, is how the car drove around Jaguar’s complex and rutted handling track. While the ride, control weights and performance potential all impress, the GT did occasionally feel slightly upset by larger, more sudden changes in elevation – like small, mid-corner crests or challenging cambers. Shamshiri assured us that, were we able to fiddle with the drive modes and adjust the damping via the dynamic or individual settings, we’d be able to tweak the GT’s floaty default demeanour. Alas, that’s one for our next outing.

On this evidence, Jaguar’s new four-door EV is shaping up to be an impressive grand tourer. If the engineers can nail down that final 30 per cent and give the car the dynamics to match its high-speed refinement, then the company’s ambitions to better Bentley in the luxury GT market seem entirely justified. Now, enough with the drip-feeding and show us the car already…