Jaguar F-Type 75 review: The end of an era – and no doubt a revolution is coming

I’m not over-keen on anything definitively final, Cup Finals aside (though, as a West Ham fan, I’ve seen only two won in 43 years. So even that’s hard to be sure about).

I’m great at hellos but dreadful at goodbyes. I cried all the way through ‘Your Song’ at Elton’s last ever London performance when I realised the soundtrack of my life was truly at the end of the Yellow Brick Road, and become dreadfully morose most New Year’s Eves.

What’s to celebrate about something being over? That it existed in the first place, is the response from our friends at Jaguar, confronting me with the all-new but soon-to-be-gone Jaguar F-Type 75.

Marking three-quarters of a century of Jaguar sports cars, it also denotes the end of the line for Jaguar V8 petrol power and — for the foreseeable future anyway — both the F-Type itself and a sports car format bearing the famed leaper insignia.

“Absolutely thrilling, even at 10 per cent of the speeds the F1 boys manage”

Come 2024, we’ll see the first of a new range of all-electric, notably elevated Jaguars, in four-seater Gran Turismo guise targeting Bentley and Aston Martin. This relatively diminutive, especially raucous twoseater is to be done and dusted.

It is, for crying out loud, the final Jaguar V8 sports car. And maybe the final Jaguar sports car.

My own fragility around such things notwithstanding, I take in the low, lithe, fluid forms that marked former Jaguar design chief Ian Callum’s high watermark, sat before me in the South of France sunshine outside the colossally impressive Maybourne Riviera hotel, sister to London’s Claridge’s.

The F-Type Convertible is enrobed in a dark Giola Green created uniquely for this concluding chapter, which is beautifully complemented by striking tan leather in the interior.

The more elegant Coupé is in the mattest of matt black finishes, the evening light thereby extinguished along its flanks to render its three dimensional form a silhouette.

It’s fabulous, albeit an extra £10k of paint finish fabulous. Before climbing aboard either, though, I first kneel at the altar of their predecessors sat close by — a 1959 Jaguar XK120 and the first E-Type roadster, as seen on the 1961 Geneva Motor Show stand, are precious artefacts lifted from Jaguar’s own heritage collection.

And by ‘kneel at the altar’, I mean ‘hop aboard for a run along the corniche from Menton towards Cap Ferrat in the old-stagers, for a (literal and figurative) sunset moment from the bucket list’. I return for dinner dewy-eyed.

“For Jaguar, it’s the end of an era, and there’s no doubt a revolution is coming”

It may have been the breeze atop the windscreens designed for shorter generations; it may have been something in my eye.

But like I said, I’m just not good at adieus. After a good night’s sleep and having awoken to an uninterrupted Mediterranean view coloured green and blue to the widest extent of my peripheral vision, it’s go time.

First up is the F-Type 75 convertible, open beneath azure skies, and since Monaco is on the doorstep, why wouldn’t you head off to lap the most famous street circuit in the world? Twice or three times.

With the sports exhaust valves open, crackling and buzzing at every lift off. Absolutely thrilling, even at 10 per cent of the speeds the F1 boys manage.

You’d imagine the locals to be tired of it all, but not remotely — I spy hundreds of camera phones held aloft as we fire by.

The car’s maker will be heartened by the brand appreciation in such a rarified atmosphere. Then to the Darth Vader’s helmet that is our flat black F-Type R 75 coupé.

It looks and feels reassuringly expensive, befitting of the six-figure price tag that adorns the top-flight R model packing 575 horses.

There’s a monster within, though at first acquaintance it’s reassuringly accessible, too. The cabin is snug but accommodating, smelling of fine leather, and the controls are light and positive.

But away into the hills and the car is alive around and beneath you. Growls become rumbles, rumbles turn to roars and at full chat there’s a bellow that starts up front and exits the tail at a level that would trouble the gods. It’s utterly glorious.

And we’ll miss it when it’s gone. Which is where I came in. I get it. I know, understand and completely accept the need for zero-emissions transport. I’ve been driving an all-electric Jaguar I-Pace of my own these past three years, charged on renewables.

“It’s a hard thing to let go of, and I may not yet be quite ready”

But as a kid — a car enthusiast even then — I had a zero-emissions Jag in the form of a blue, E-Type pedal car (pictured opposite). And while my brother and I loved it dearly, what we both ultimately wanted was the real car — a noisy one. The one that smelled of leather, oil and petrol.

And for two glorious spring days in Jaguar’s company, I got to live that childhood dream and then some.

For Jaguar, it’s the end of an era, and there’s no doubt a revolution is coming. Though new-gen Jag details are scant, you can see in the eyes of the company’s most senior folk a genuine excitement for the future.

I’m more than eager to witness the promised “copy of nothing” that speaks to the company’s founder’s core values, in a new world.

But look at the cars pictured here. Imagine them alive with all of the colour, the sound and the tactility of an interaction with a mechanical masterpiece.

It’s a hard thing to let go of, and I may not yet be quite ready. I’m not so good at goodbyes.