Midweek Motoring with Gavin D’Souza
Jaguar took the entire motoring world by surprise when it drove a previously unheard of concept out on to the Paris Motor Show floor last week.
It is called the C-X75, in honour of the marque’s 75th anniversary, and looks like it jumped straight out of the pages of science fiction.
The car may be Jaguar’s big, shiny birthday present to itself, but as with all concepts, it really exists as a hyperbolic preview to the next generation of production models.
It is implausibly low, wide and raked-back in its stance, like a mid-engined XK that has been massaged gently with a rolling pin.
As with all Jaguar concepts, there are elements of both tradition and production reality in the car’s design, a design which seems more at home on a teenager’s bedroom wall poster than a driveway.
It echoes a number of famous Jags of yore, most notably the prototype XJ13 racer from the 1960s and the venerable record-breaking super-cat of the ‘90s, the XJ220.
And while the car’s lines would seem wildly outrageous at first glance, they do feature believable elements – like the grille, headlights and front air intakes – that could easily be seen on the next XK coupe. It wouldn’t be the first time a Jaguar concept has made it to production virtually unmolested.
However styling, Jaguar says, is not the only thing that could coax you out of buying that BMW in a few years. As demonstrated in Paris, the C-X75 is fully functional, and its powertrain is the thing that really has everyone talking.
What makes this concept unique is not its means of propulsion, which is sourced from four electric motors, each making nearly as much power as a VW Golf GTI, all plugged into a bank of lithium-ion batteries; just like any other electric car on the market today.
No, the real trick is the sustenance of this power.
In order to boost driving longevity, the C-X75 is a range-extender hybrid, which means it has an engine, but only to charge the battery, just as we’ve seen before on Chevrolet’s revolutionary Volt (although it has just been reported that GM may have lied about the all-electric locomotion, and the Volt is just another plug-in hybrid like the Prius).
Unlike the Volt which uses a conventional, piston-pushing petrol engine as a generator, the Jag uses a pair of miniature turbines to rekindle its batteries. That’s pure James Bond, that is.
They even look the part; the two slender tubes finished in brushed aluminium and glowed upon by cold blue ambient LEDs under a glass rear window that would otherwise reveal some form of high capacity combustion engine.
The turbines can run on diesel, bio-fuel, compressed natural gas or LPG, and on their own generate 140kW as they spin furiously at a manic 80,000rpm. That would be quite an earful in a two-seater.
This power, if required, could be called upon to supplement the 560kW from the four wheel-mounted electric motors which, by themselves, take the C-X75 to 100km/h in 3.4 seconds and on to a top speed of 330km/h.
Then, with a simple flick of a switch in Speed Racer mode, the hot air expelled from the turbines can be channelled to the car’s venturi tunnels to create instantaneous downforce which, when combined with torque-vectoring electric all-wheel drive and near-perfect weight distribution, should make this a formidable corner carver.
The car can do about 110km without the turbines feeding the battery pack (and therefore on zero emissions), but with their help, that number shoots straight up to 900km.
Plus, turbines are far more energy-efficient and easy to maintain than conventional internal-combustion engines.
This all sounds bewilderingly good, as is the way with concept cars, and most of the range-related figures are theoretical at best.
But Jaguar, presumably sick of criticism over purely visual concepts like the R-Coupe and F-Type over the years, has proudly announced it is already working on an engineering prototype to begin testing. Presumably at the Nurburgring - that hallowed proving ground for all electric vehicles.
So what’s holding them back?
Development costs, really. The turbines in the concept have been sourced from specialist manufacturer Bladon, and cost a fortune to be shrunk to motorcar scale, not to mention the exotic materials that allow them to withstand the potentially preposterous operating temperatures.
But how about if they saved the decidedly utopian turbines for our grandchildren, and for the time being replaced them with a tried-and-tested 5.0-litre V8?
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