Cast your information-addled minds back to September 2011, and the Frankfurt motor show. Sorry, that should have read the Jaguar C-X16 motor show, because those halls were buzzing with Jag's stunning new sports coupe.
Now, just one year on, its production ready successor is ready and set for a worldwide debut at the Paris motor show on 27 September. Ladies and gentlemen of The Internet, the Jaguar F-Type is here.
Nearly, anyway. Next month, as Jaguar's Adrian Halllmark proclaims, marks "the company's return to the sports car market". As you'll recall, the F-Type is based very closely to that C-X16 concept car - barring the hybrid setup - and as such, measures in at approximately the same size as the new Porsche 911, making it the smallest Jaguar built since the ‘50s.
It'll debut as a convertible first, but the coupe will follow, and Jaguar has confirmed it will launch with a 3.0-litre supercharged V6 engine in 336bhp and 376bhp versions, as well as a ‘new derivative' of the fabulous supercharged 5.0-litre V8. All those horses will be delivered to the rear wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox equipped with start/stop technology. It's also made from aluminium too, meaning the weight should be nice and low.
Jaguar is building the new F-Type in the UK too, at the Castle Bromwich factory, following hugely strenuous testing both in the physical world and in the digital; apparently more than half a million separate F-Type design analyses were carried out, with 10 million computer hours of processing. Top Gear doesn't understand computers very well (barring what you can achieve with a hammer), but that sounds like A Lot.
Says Ian Hoban, Jaguar vehicle line director: "When you are working on a Jaguar sports car the expectations of the world are huge." He's not wrong. The countdown to Paris begins now...
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