Things never stay the way you may like them, but moving on is part of life.
The year is 2013. I’m settling into my first auto-writing job in a small media company outside of Chicago. I can hear something coming down the road, well before I ever actually see it, the bass rumbling my sternum in between sharp firework cracks. It’s Jaguar’s brand-new F-Type, a low, lithe two-door that snuck into the market just before Mercedes released the AMG GT. For a kid in his mid-20s, still figuring out what the hell life was all about, the F-Type solved it. That was living. I wanted to be there, in that seat, until our warm spot in the universe turned cold.
But there is no pause button, no way to freeze a moment and live within it forever. Now, I’m 10 years older, with a partner and a mortgage and other honest-to-god adult responsibilities, and there’s a Jaguar F-Type in my driveway once again — for what is likely the last time. It doesn’t feel the same. But then again, nothing does, and the more I think about it, the more I come to realize that it’s fine. What’s here, in the now, is still great; I just have to stop pining for the fjords of the past.
There were a lot of striking similarities between me and the F-Type at our joint inception. Desperate to make a name for ourselves in a new arena — in Jaguar’s case, building a sports coupe that wasn’t an awkward-looking, watered-down tart like the XK — we leaned into chaos, and we weren’t quiet about it.
It didn’t matter if it had the V6 or the V8 under the hood, the O.G. F-Type’s exhaust pipes were constantly furious. It didn’t matter how low the needle was on the tachometer; every single time I lifted the throttle, it would emit a series of loud cracks and pops that, and I kid you not, once made a small child on a nearby sidewalk start crying. Still mired in post-collegiate youth, I, too, was brash and self-destructive, not giving one iota of a shit about anything around me as I barged ham-fistedly through a never-ending cascade of late-night bar runs and bleary-eyed morning commutes. We both partied way too hard and had way too much fun.
But the inexorable march of time tends to smooth out those peaks and valleys, and that’s what happened to both me and the F-Type. Over the years, the Jaguar grew up, and the 2023 model’s exhaust feels like a barely there remnant of the past. It’s still on the loud side, sure, but the overrun is gone, and with it a chunk of the F-Type’s character.
The brashness of youth eventually gives way to refinement and maturity. Andrew Krok/CNET
When that veneer of theater — where I could burn a quarter-tank of gas in an hour of suburban driving simply because I never left second gear — finally wore off, what was left felt like a friend who got a better job, moved to a nicer place and stopped responding to 10 p.m. texts on a Friday because they were already asleep. As I moved on from that mom-and-pop, punk-rock outlet to a multidecade tech stalwart replete with things like expectations and standards, I realized that I, too, had grown up and moved on. I upended my whole life, packed it all into a recently purchased station wagon and set off into the unknown, adding physical and emotional distance between everything I knew and whatever was to come next.
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And it made me sad, in a way. That wide-eyed optimism in the face of something new and universally exciting gave way to routines, meetings, the nitty-gritty of adult life that you dread in your youth. It made me want to hang onto those memories forever, driving down Sheridan in that F-Type, sending a sharp rebuke to the milquetoast denizens of Winnetka in their Equinoxes and CR-Vs, the exhaust pipes and I shouting simultaneously, “We’ll never be like you.” But we are. Erosion wore down the sharp edges of our square pegs until we could fit into those round holes.
Despite a few nips and tucks, the F-Type’s interior is largely the same as it was at its inception. Andrew Krok/CNET
I have tried to reverse the trend, to try and get back out there and feel the way I did in the old days, but it doesn’t hit the same. Two-day hangovers are my new normal. So are things like buying mulch and vetting contractors. Whenever a new F-Type lands on my driveway for review, I find the best roads I can in an effort to put those windows down and hear the noises I’ve wanted to hear again for years. But I can’t. They just aren’t there anymore. Sure, when you give that 575-horsepower, 515-pound-foot, 5.0-liter supercharged V8 the beans, it still screams with the best of them, but it takes far more effort than it used to, and even still, it just doesn’t land with the same gravitas as it did in 2013.
I used to think this was a bad thing. But, as the time I’m trying desperately to recapture grows smaller and smaller in the rearview, it’s easier to keep my eyes pointed forward and appreciate the present more, increasingly unburdened by my rose-tinted misremembering. The only thing holding me back from appreciating what was in front of me was my nostalgic attempt at necromancy.
Now, instead of looking at the 2023 F-Type as a brash coupe that was forced to grow up, I now see it as a sports car that’s matured. Its tattoos are still there, they’re just sneaking around, hidden under the sleeves of a tailored business suit.
Growing up can be fun, but perhaps a different kind of fun than what you’re used to. Andrew Krok/CNET
Jaguar’s adaptive suspension keeps the handling nice and flat when the going gets twisty, the brakes are grabby, and it still squirms like a madman on corner exit as its Pirelli P-Zero summer tires (265/30ZR20 front, 305/30ZR20 rear) and traction-control system desperately try to maintain grip on a crisp October afternoon. It’s every bit as exciting and lively as it once was, and as it always has been. Except now, it looks a little more professional, it’s a little bit quieter and the infotainment system actually does what I want it to — even if the embedded navigation system’s maps already look half a decade behind their prime.
I still go to concerts, but now I wear earplugs (and since tinnitus really sucks, you should, too). I can still go out with friends, but I focus more on having interesting conversations and laughing about, not crying over, the good times. I love the home I’ve helped build, the family I’ve helped grow and there’s nothing more comforting than settling onto the couch and feeling content in my accomplishments. So, too, should Jaguar be able to take a rest on its laurels and enjoy the contribution it made to the final era of internal-combustion sports cars.
Keyword: The 2023 Jaguar F-Type and the Perils of Growing Up