New Jaguar 4-Door GT driven

Remember when Jaguar shocked the world by rejecting its past to reinvent itself as a modern, progressive electrified luxury brand? Turns out this may not have been entirely true! And, having finally driven the new 4-Door GT, we can report it’s still very much a Jaguar, with a clear bloodline to those that came before.
We’ve ridden shotgun in the 4-Door GT previously, of course. But this is our first time driving it, albeit still covered in pre-production camouflage as part of the drawn-out build-up to its official unveiling later in the year. And drive it alongside some more traditional Jaguars for a flavour of its inspiration. Turns out this is exactly what the team designing and building the 4-Door GT did themselves, this trip into the past helping them to understand Jaguar and define its future. Which they did with a day driving a selection of Jaguar’s greatest hits from the firm’s classic fleet.

“After a short presentation we’re taken straight out to the 4-Door GT and told to make ourselves comfortable”

And there’s no messing about. After a short presentation we’re taken straight out to the 4-Door GT and told to make ourselves comfortable in the driver’s seat. If that feels like it’s been a long time coming … it has! First impressions? Well, it’s still covered in the black and white ‘disruptive’ camo on the outside panels of black felt are still hiding the interior trimmings bar the steering wheel, instrument screens, basic controls and a big red emergency button between the seats. “Please don’t touch that!” jokes our chaperone. Basically as it was when we had a ride in it late last year. We’ve just swapped to the driver’s seat, this time. It is HUGE as well. Parked alongside its 60s and 70s predecessors you can see where the low roofline and long bonnet have come from. But it looks double the size. We’re left hoping promises it shrinks around you on the move prove true. The low-slung seating position certainly feels classically Jaguar, the wide, flat bonnet stretching off into the distance, the bodywork wrapping around you and the small, sporty steering wheel offering the first hint that, yes, perhaps this five-metre, two-and-a-bit tonne luxury behemoth may feel more compact than it looks. A shame Jaguar is following the trend for putting basics like steering wheel adjustment through repurposed cruise control switches on the wheel but maybe there’s time to sort that yet.

“Four-wheel steering and a light feel to the wheel make it surprisingly manoeuvrable at low speeds”

Navigating a priceless prototype around a car park filled with equally valuable classics is a high-pressure start, and while forward visibility through the huge windscreen is good the chunky bodywork, slim side windows and camouflage panels limit peripheral vision. But four-wheel steering and a light feel to the wheel make it surprisingly manoeuvrable at low speeds, and we depart without any embarrassing fender benders. Our chaperone explains the cars we’re driving are still work in progress, with some fine-tuning yet to be done. But are most of the way there in terms of the fundamentals of steering, suspension, electronics and power delivery. The ingredients are all in the pan, it’s cooked through and the sauce has reduced – a bit of seasoning and it’ll be ready to serve up! Ride quality appears to have been a real fixation with the new car, this one of the biggest takeaways the team had from driving the old ones. JLR products – whether they be Jaguars, Land Rovers or Range Rovers – have always had fantastic ride comfort, informed by years of expertise and the very particular demands of the bumpy test track and local B-roads on which they are developed.

“Imagine the worst bits of the lumpiest back lane you’ve ever driven condensed into a few hundred yards”

To those ends the surfaces on which we are driving are deliberately contrived to bring out the worst in a car, including a specially designed infield with a particularly evil combination of surfaces, bumps and cambers to really test the ride quality. Basically, imagine the worst bits of the lumpiest back lane you’ve ever driven condensed into a few hundred yards and you get a sense. Without getting lost in the tech the 4-Door GT just glides over it all. Even on the massive 23-inch wheels and fat tyres that would usually be the death of ride quality and refinement. Like many modern luxury cars it uses electronically-controlled air suspension but, in fact, Jaguar has swerved the technical over-complication of many rivals to focus on the human element of tuning and calibration. Just as it always has. And it shows. For all the intimidation factor of driving a 1,000 horsepower prototype around a wet and greasy test track the power delivery is impressively relaxing as well. There will, inevitably, be a selection of driving modes available but we’re in the default one, the throttle calibrated for smoothness rather than head-snapping aggression. There’s a sense of the huge power under your foot. But only in reserve, should you need it. The rest of the time the 4-Door GT is refreshingly chilled and never straining at the leash, as some similarly powerful cars can be.

“You can feel this drive from the rear of the car pushing the nose into the turn”

There are three motors, one driving the front axle and two at the back, driving each of the rear wheels independently balanced by some very clever electronics. Jumping early on the throttle on a long, sweeping bend at the end of the test track’s long straight you can feel this drive from the rear of the car pushing the nose into the turn where you might have expected it to run wide. This doesn’t happen with armfuls of opposite lock and clouds of tyre smoke. Indeed, your passengers probably wouldn’t even notice. But as the driver you can feel these tiny shifts in power through the tips of your fingers and your backside, which in a car this big and potent is nothing short of remarkable. And very similar to the 1970s XJ-C the team settled on as the benchmark for what they were trying to replicate. From driving that very car later in the day it seems they nailed it. And this is the main takeaway. The 4-Door GT is an evidently sophisticated, powerful and complicated car. But incredibly simple to appreciate from behind the wheel, thanks to the human touch informing the engineering and some carefully chosen reference points from Jaguar’s back catalogue. For all that talk of forgetting the past turns out it did have some valuable lessons for informing the future, after all!