A Matter of Taste: Style or Bile

OUTthere Issue 72

Style or Bile?

Car styling, like all fashion comes and goes in waves. The 1930s produced some of the most magnificent lines, while the fifties became ‘blocky’. The ‘60s stand out as the most daring while the ‘70s and ‘80s slumped into the hideous doldrums.

Just as art can split opinions, so can cars. Some might say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but car fans are predictably unanimous in their verdicts. Roderick Eime wades into the argument with his own opinion.

The World’s Most Beautiful Car

A jury of the world’s great car designers ruminated long and hard, but one car that keeps appearing in every list of gorgeous automotive creations is the Mark 1 E-Type Jaguar.

Conceived in the brash 1960s, when style still meant something, it survived until 1975 when the infectious design malaise finally struck even this most beautiful of cars.

Available in both coupe (FHC) and convertible (DHC), lovers of the marque are split over which is most visually pleasing, but both camps are delighted to disagree over such a pleasant argument. Even Enzo Ferrari called it "The most beautiful car ever made".

Powerful, glamorous and reasonably priced, the E-Type took the US market by storm in March 1961 and immediately spawned a domestic UK market four months later. More Mark 1s (38,000) were made than both the Mark 2 and 3 together.

Originally fitted with the successful and sweet-revving 3.8 litre DOHC straight six, it was uprated to the 4.2 litre version in 1964. The Mark 3 was fitted with a massive V12 which many purists saw as a vulgar expression.

Designer, Malcolm Sayer, saw himself more as an aerodynamicist than an automotive stylist. He had previously worked in aircraft design during the war and was instrumental in some of Jaguar’s most enduring models, including the similarly pleasing C and D Type racing cars.

Other short-listed: Italian triumph, Ferrari 275GTB; Lightweight English looker, Lotus Elan.

Ferrari 275GTB

The World’s Ugliest Car

Yes, this is a real ad.

Universally reviled by glamour car enthusiasts worldwide, the 1975 AMC Pacer stands alone. Remarkably, the US-built 2-door coupe designed and sold by the folks who brought us a string of automotive travesties like Rambler, Nash and Humvee manufactured this “hat full” for five years. 280,000 of them were produced in both hatchback and wagon before Chrysler put the world out of its misery in 1987 by buying the brand and renaming it Eagle.

There’s no accounting for taste and the Dick Teague-designed car made the transition to UK and European markets, producing perhaps the world’s ultimate bad taste car advertisement for the “racy” French market.

Ironically the car reached a level of cult status when it starred in the 1992 nerd movie “Wayne’s World” and is now an icon of ‘70s bad taste and cringe fashion. There was even a Levi’s version complete with denim seats and brass buttons. What were they thinking?

Other short-listed: Yugoslavian fiasco, Yugo; the Great Aussie eyesore, P76.

Jaguar XK Convertible

When released to a salivating public last year, both the Jaguar XK Coupe and Convertible immediately garnered accolades from the fussiest critics. BBC’s Top Gear awarded it “Best Car of 2006”, Which Car voted it “Most Exciting Car of 2007”, MotorWeek dubbed it “Best Dream Car” and. surprisingly, Germany’s Auto Zeitung readers rated Jaguar “First in Quality”.

The XK was designed and engineered above and beyond the high expectations customers rightly have for a Jaguar sports car, a fact made possible because everything from its advanced aluminium chassis to its sophisticated transmission and exquisite interior has been designed in pursuit of a luxurious, advanced and stunning new Jaguar.

"The XK is exactly the sort of sports car that only Jaguar could produce - beautiful to look at and incredible to drive. The XK represents pure automotive desire on four wheels. Everyone who sees it wants to drive it and be seen in it," said Bibiana Boerio, Managing Director, Jaguar Cars at the 2006 launch. "It appeals to customers who do not make compromises in life because like them we have made no compromises in designing it. Whether you go for the drive of a lifetime through the Alps or cruise top-down across America, you will discover these are breathtakingly modern cars that share the heart and soul of every great Jaguar of the past.

The compact, lightweight all-aluminium V8 engine is based on that fitted to the latest generation XJ saloon and has undergone significant development compared with the engine used in the previous XK, including new fuel-injection technology

For the first time in a Jaguar, drivers use steering wheel-mounted paddles to change gear with the new Sequential Shift transmission. In either Drive or Sport Manual modes, very fast gear shifts - as quick as 600 milliseconds - are achieved by combining the use of one-touch paddles with an automatic blip of the throttle from the drive-by-wire engine management system during downshifts.

The interior is very clean and driver-focussed, with simple architectural forms and minimalist detailing. What's in front of the driver essentially defines the feel of the car, which is sporty and functional. The dashboard lines flow from the A pillars to the centre console, whose advanced touch-screen carries the controls for many of the car's features - allowing the number of switches on the instrument panel to be kept to a minimum.

A supercharged version (XKR) is due in May this year.

BY THE NUMBERS

ENGINE Quad-cam naturally aspirated 4.2 litre AJ-V8
POWER 224 kW @ 6000 rpm. (306 kW supercharged)
TORQUE 420 Nm @ 4100 rpm (560 Nm supercharged)
0-100 KM/H 6.3 secs
TOP SPEED 250 km/h (limited)
PRICE $221,900 (XK) $249,500 (XKR)

The Cat's Back: Jaguar S-Type 4.2 Luxury

The Cat's Back: Jaguar S-Type 4.2 Luxury

40 years later, the stylish S-Type reappears. But is it the Cat of old?