Even when it’s just refuelling, Jaguar’s C-X75 concept car sounds malevolent. All supercars sound lean and mean at full chat, whether it be the ripping silk of the Ferrari 458’s flat-plane crank V8 or the thundering, Nascar-like baritone of a Mercedes SLS Black, virtually every super sports car will thrill with the vroom of its engine.
But, as far as I know, the experimental Jag is the only one that, standing still, key safely ensconced in your trouser pocket and refuelling hose – sorry, high-tech, high-voltage recharging line – plugged into its high-voltage port, sounds like it’s going to lead us into temptation and corrupt the morals of our youth. It sounds evil does this Jaguar, even when it’s standing completely still next to an electrical socket.
The C-X75, for those few motorheads who’ve been living in a cave these last two years, is Jaguar’s answer to the competition’s recent spate of hybridised, supposedly emission-conscious supercars; McLaren’s P1, the Porsche 918 and Ferrari’s LaFerrari. All claim the green mantle’s emissions reduction while simultaneously boasting incredible horsepower, the LaFerrari (what a pretentious name that is) claiming 900-plus.
Unfortunately, there is some concern that with so many players vying for Bill Gates-like money, the market for million-dollar green supercars might be a little crowded (Porsche is reportedly having much trouble moving its 918) and so, despite initial plans for Jaguar to produce 200 samples of the C-X75, the company has since announced that the programme is on indefinite hold. Poor economic climes is the official reason but one can’t help but suspect that memories of the difficulty the company had selling the equally exotic XJ220 played a part in Jaguar’s reticence.
Nonetheless, the supposedly experimental C-X75 is an almost fully developed prototype on the very edge of production and an intriguing example of what a performance hybrid might be capable of. Powered by a minuscule 1.6-litre, four-cylinder engine (designed by Williams – of Formula One fame – Advanced Engineering) and no less than two electric motors, Jaguar claims a top speed on the scary side of 320kph. The Williams 1.6L, which revs to a heady 10,300rpm, produces 502 ponies (yes, 313 horsepower per litre; no, that’s not a typo) while each of the two wafer thin electric motors (one connected to the front axle through a single-speed gearbox, the other powering the rear tyres through the traditional seven-speed transaxle) produces 195hp. Put them all together and, according to Ian Cluett, head of Williams Advanced Engineering’s powertrain development, you’re good for nigh on 890 rootin’, tootin’, horsepower.
That seemingly odd choice of powertrains (twice blown 1.6-litre four-pots are hardly common supercar engines) is an essential part of the Mission Impossible nature of the C-X75’s original design brief; namely that the car be as fast as a Veyron (less than three seconds to 100kph), have the pure electric range of a Chevrolet Volt (60 kilometres) and, most crucially, the overall CO2 emissions level of a Toyota Prius.
So what they ended up with is a supercar of incredible complexity (the engine with both a supercharger and a turbocharger, two electric motors, two lithium-ion batteries, two electrical inverters and no less than 14 radiators) possessed of seemingly impossible sophistication — the C-X75 is as sweet to drive as an F-Type V6 — that will scream down the (relatively) short straight of Jaguar’s High-Speed Emissions Track at 310kph with such ease and stability that yours truly took one hand off the steering wheel (only to make a point to Mike Cross, Jaguar’s famed vehicle integrity engineer who was sitting in the passenger seat). This is what Cross calls the C-X75’s “full phat” mode, with both electric motors and gas engine all pumping maximum go-juice to all four wheels. And yes, as you might probably imagine, the super-revvy Williams 1.6L was howling like a banshee every time I paddle-shifted up a gear at 10,300rpm.
But – and here’s me finally getting to that bit about the C-X75 sinister attitude at refuelling – the electrified Jag can be driven in purely electric vehicle mode and, almost as impressive as all that petrol-fuelled drama, is that the C-X75 will accelerate to 100kph in about six seconds powered by electricity alone. That’s right, the C-X75 is faster than most cars on the road today before you even turn on the engine. Top speed, again in pure electric mode, is about 150kph. Indeed, around something like Jaguar’s tighter handling track, the C-X75 would prove as quick in EV mode as many a petrol-powered sports car.
What I have been going on about, however – and don’t those crazy Brits think of everything – is something Jaguar calls an Interior Sound Synthesizer. Essentially just a fancy name for a garden-variety amplifier, the ISS system nevertheless takes the novel approach of vibrating the C-X75’s roof – yes, the whole roof – to produce vroom-like engine sounds as you drive electrically, the sound of EV silence something Jaguar obviously didn’t want for its supercar. By times, it sounds like a high-speed two-stroke motorcycle, others like a thrumming turboprop airplane straining for altitude. But here’s my favourite part; when it’s parked and plugged into its high-speed charging port, the ISS emits a raspy low-frequency thrum akin to the sound effects the movie director Ridley Scott employed every time the alien was about to munch Sigourney Weaver. You half expect the whole car to pulse malevolently and snatch small children from the street. Even refuelling, the C-X75 sounds like a menace to society.
It will also, as per the design mandate, crawl along at more sedate speed for more than 40km (no one has really pushed the range limit yet, because the system, still in prototype development, is not yet optimised for battery depletion). But, in most of its EV/hybrid operation, the supercar is strikingly similar to current plug-ins. The 650-volt battery – actually batteries, since there are two, saddle mounted on either side of the engine – are lithium-ion and boast 19.3 kW-h. Like a Prius, the battery is never charged to its limits and once below 20 per cent of capacity, it stops pumping power to the electric motors. And, again just like a garden-variety Toyota, the C-X75’s regenerative brakes recharge the battery when the free electrons start to get low.
Incredibly, this is not the ultimate development possible from the C-X75’s powertrain. Indeed, since the Williams-designed engine is a leftover from Formula One’s ill-conceived plan to power the world’s most exotic race cars with four-cylinder engines, there’s more to be had if Jaguar had decided from the start that the C-X75 would remain a concept car rather than being engineered for production. For instance, though its 10,300 rpm redline is stratospheric by production car standards, it’s positively pedestrian by Formula One measure, the bottom end completely understressed even though it’s screaming like a refugee from the Nurburgring. Williams actually says the only thing stopping the little 1.6L from spinning higher and harder and producing even more power is some F1-style pneumatic valves. Considering the rapidity at which the current prototype accelerates to 300kph, the mind boggles.
The rest of the technology beneath Ian Callum’s impossibly beautiful sculpting is also F1-like. Were I trying to simplify the explanation, I might say that the C-X75’s chassis is based on a carbon fibre tub much like McLaren’s MP4-12C, but, in fact, Jaguar and Williams have taken the alternative material design even further. Unlike the MP4, the Jaguar’s rear subframe is also constructed of carbon fibre (the 12C’s is aluminium). Felipe Austin Bodely, Jaguar’s vehicle integration manager, won’t even call the rear section a subframe, preferring to think of the C-X75’s superstructure as two main frames bolted together by no less than 14 massive, M10 high-tensile steel bolts embedded in the carbon fibre moulding. By comparison, the F1-inspired, lever-armed double-wishbone suspension seems almost pedestrian.
All of this, of course, had to fit under the skin of the original C-X75 (C for concept, X for experimental and 75 being Jaguar’s anniversary) concept car, which, if you remember, was powered by a miniature gas turbine engine. Making a production version of such a slinky silhouette, massaging it so real human beings could sit in it (the concept had fixed seats and minimal legroom)‚ and then finding space for the petrol engine the original never intended was not without its challenges. Throw in the fact that there are those 14 radiators I mentioned earlier and you have a packaging nightmare.
The solutions were ingenious. The petrol tank, for instance, is in the centre tunnel where a transmission would normally lie (the single-clutch, seven-speed manumatic is a transaxle) centralising mass and having the added benefit of not affecting the polar moment of inertia as the fuel level recedes. Smaller wheels and a shallower rear angle of attack allowed Jaguar to lift the roofline (to fit helmeted heads) without raising the car’s overall height. Interestingly, Bodely says one of the toughest engineering challenges was fitting windscreen wipers, the car’s incredibly low bonnet and dense packaging leaving very little room for the tiny motors.
The most amazing thing about the C-X75 is not its top speed (but, did I mention that I managed 310 screaming kilometres per hour in the wet, on a short straightaway, on my first lap?) but its civility. In the final, most production ready prototype (number five), the leather seats, the buttonry and even the touch-screen would be familiar to anyone who has driven a Jaguar of recent vintage. And, in terms of everyday driving, the C-X75, thanks to its electric power steering, is no more difficult to manhandle than an F-Type. Even the ride is not supercar stiff.
But, make no mistake, this is a supercar, perhaps the best supercar you, or anyone else no matter how rich, will sadly never be allowed to buy. Everyone I talked with inside Jag’s Gaydon engineering centre desperately hopes the C-X75 gets out of the penalty box. Indeed, “there’s still some hope”, says Callum with just enough bonhomie that he almost manages to convince. Let’s hope he’s right; it would be a travesty if the C-X75 remained stillborn.
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