Jaguar does not build many cars like the Jaguar R-Coupe: a 2-door coupé with 4.0 , built from 2001 in the decade of stability control, dual-clutch gearboxes and the first serious hybrids. Its designer of record is Ian Callum.
How it came about
The Jaguar R-Coupe is a concept car developed by the British car company Jaguar. It was first shown to the public at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2001.
Designed by Ian Callum, the four-seater, two-door coupe showed a new direction for Jaguars, which developed from the style of the 1999 Jaguar S-Type. It is the first Jaguar design fully created under Callum's direction after his appointment to the company in 1999. The R-Type is designed around the XKR's supercharged V8 engine and rear-drive drivetrain, but Jaguar emphasised that there were no plans for production.
The hardware
Under the skin sits 4.0 . The gearbox is a Automatic with F1 Style Gear Change. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Honda Fit, the Citroën C3, the Mazda Mazda6. Its Jaguar stablemates include the F-Type and the Vanden Plas.