Electric vehicles are a hot topic among the Wilmette, IL drivers served by Jaguar Northfield. Many manufacturers, Jaguar Land Rover among them, are promising huge expansions in their available electric vehicles (EVs) by 2020. We don’t think that any other automaker has made the announcement quite this stylishly, however.
Rather than using one of their upcoming EVs as the basis for the announcement, the company chose instead to look back to what’s arguably the most storied model in its history: the Jaguar E-TYPE. What does a gas-guzzler with a straight-six engine have to do with the future of electric cars? Well, if it’s done right — which is the only way you do it when you’re doing it with a classic car — the answer is, “Everything.”
In place of the aforementioned straight-six, the engineers at Jaguar Land Rover Classic Works in Coventry, England, put an all-electric powertrain. Now, when we say “in place of,” we don’t mean a simple swap that took out the engine and slapped in a battery pack and electric motor. We mean a battery pack and electric motor that were precisely designed to fit where that petrol engine once sat.
What results is a car that retains most of the original Series 1.5 roadster on which the design is based, and which can be rebuilt to its original specifications quickly. This is interesting for a couple of reasons, and the fact that Jaguar will have at least one EV version of each new Jaguar car in just three years’ time isn’t even the most interesting part. We can easily envision a future where zero-emissions versions of even classic Jaguar cars are found on the streets around Chicago.
There are more new Jaguar EVs in the pipeline, of course, including the upcoming Jaguar I-PACE crossover. But every so often, it’s nice to be reminded that a company hasn’t forgotten what made it successful. The Jaguar E-TYPE is the forerunner of modern classics like the Jaguar F-TYPE, and is an icon of performance and style. You’ll find there’s plenty more in the same spirit at your Jaguar dealership near Chicago, IL. Visit Jaguar Northfield at 670 Frontage Road today!
