Jaguar F-Type R P575 | PH Used Buying Guide
Those looks, all-wheel drive and almost 600hp from that 5.0-litre V8 - for £50k. Is there a catch?
Key considerations
- Available for £50,000
- 5.0-litre supercharged V8 petrol, all-wheel drive
- You won’t feel the need for more performance or comfort
- 2020-on facelift cars were much improved in both drive and reliability
- Infotainment isn’t Pivi Pro
- They don’t make it any more, so it could be one to buy and enjoy
Today we’ll be looking at the last and most powerful V8 iteration of the Jaguar F-Type, namely the 2020-on facelift F-Type R P575 with a supercharged 5.0 litre V8 producing 575hp – the same as the previous SVR – and the slitty headlamps. There was a 450hp P450 version that was available in either rear- or all-wheel drive, but the 575hp big boy was all-wheel drive only. The supercharged V6 was eventually lost in the facelift, kiboshed by emissions regs.
For madness avoidance reasons we’ll henceforth refer to the facelift R P575 simply as the R. First Edition cars for the first model year came with an exterior design pack in Dorchester Grey to complement the paint choices of Santorini Black, Eiger Grey or Fuji White. They also had model-unique 5-spoke 20-inch wheels in gloss grey with contrast ‘diamond-turned’ finish and 12-way Windsor leather performance seats in Ebony with Light Oyster stitching or Mars with Flame Red stitching. The instrument cluster was wrapped in Alcantara with Monogram embossing, the gearshift paddles were aluminium, the headliner was Ebony suedecloth and there was an ’Engine Spin’ centre console finisher with First Edition branding.
The R needed only 3.7 seconds to cover off the 0-62mph run in either coupe or Convertible forms, which was nearly a full second less than the P450 took. It went on from there to 186mph in either format. The R coupe cost around £97,000 new, about £13,000 less than the old SVR.
The last hurrahs for the F were the Final Editions and the runout 75 model of 2023 marking (guess?) 75 years of the XK120. New prices for the R 75 – which could be specified with forged wheels and ceramic brakes – began at just under £103k for the coupe and just over £108k for the Convertible. ‘Plus’ trim added more leather, a pano roof, privacy glass and new badging. The official announcement that Jaguar had stopped building the F-Type came in the summer of 2024, although we suspect that actual production might have happened a little earlier than that.
After batting away the butterflies and odd-looking people caked in make-up that currently inhabit the Jaguar website you’ll still see F-Types quite heavily featured as approved used offerings, perhaps to appease Jaguar traditionalists who had been spitting out their cornflakes after seeing the Type 00 on the website landing page. For an approved used 20,000-mile R P575 coupe in May 2025 you’ll be needing at least £57,000, and potentially up to £80k for a delivery mileage Convertible. In slightly draughtier, less cosy surroundings outside of the Jaguar dealer network you’ll find higher-mileage (40k) P575 coupes for under £50k, and cars with fewer than 20,000 miles on them for not much more money than that. P575 convertibles are thinner on the ground. The cheapest one we found at the time of writing was a 2022 car with 8,000 miles on it at £64k.
If these seem like high prices for what you might consider to be just another obsolete Jag, maybe you need to stop and think. Then try to have a go in a P575 F-Type. That experience might make you wonder why you’re about to blow a considerably larger sum of your inheritance wad on something Italian or German. Of course, as everybody knows Jaguars break down all the time, don’t they? Well, let’s take a look at that one shall we? You might be surprised.
SPECIFICATION | JAGUAR F-TYPE R P575 (2020-24)
Engine: 5,000cc V8, supercharged
Transmission: 8-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 575@6,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 516@3,500-5,000rpm
0-62mph (secs): 3.7
Top speed (mph): 186
Weight (kg): 1,818 (Convertible 1,838)
MPG (WLTP): 26.4
CO2 (g/km): 243
Wheels (in): 20
Tyres: 265/35 (f), 305/30 (r)
On sale: 2020 - 2024
Price new: £97,000
Price now: from £50,000
Note for reference: car weight and power data are hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.
ENGINE & GEARBOX
The R’s supercharged AJ133 V8 with its pleasingly round-numbered displacement of 5,000cc could be disappointingly quiet in some applications, but it wasn’t in the F-Type R when the flaps on the ‘R’-etched exhaust were opened up. Luckily for your neighbours there was a default quiet start function. Unluckily for your neighbours if you didn’t like them, you could override that quietness by pressing the exhaust button or by putting the car into Dynamic mode to get that hallmark exhaust flare that was guaranteed to get older neighbours shaking their fists in what you will choose to see as gratitude. After all, you could have bought Lister’s 666hp LFT-666 ‘Thunder’ version of the gen-one F-Type, which was pure evil. Mind you, so was the price at £140k in 2018 for one of the 99 LFT-666s that were scheduled to be built.
Going back to the regular 575hp/514lb ft V8 that we’re focusing on here, you couldn’t have it with a manual gearbox. That was a pity, but understandable given the reduced choice of manuals capable of handling that amount of power and torque. Plus there was the fact that the six-speed manual that had been an option on the gen-one F-Type V6 back in 2015 had to be discontinued in 2019 because of lack of demand.
The Quickshift eight-speed auto (the ubiquitous ZF 8HP) that you got with the facelift V8 R wasn’t a double-clutcher, but Jaguar said that it had been recalibrated with learnings from the XE SV Project 8. You had full manual control through either the SportShift selector or the paddles and there was a gearshift light to help you pick your changeup points. Once rolling, the new R hoovered up the road like a giant Henry vacuum on crack, with no lag and speedy enough shifting, although there could be a bit of a bang as the gears went in at higher revs in Dynamic mode and the box did sometimes feel almost too eager to please in terms of its responsiveness. Overall though it was a smoother and more predictable drive than the old SVR.
Enthusiastic use would drop the fuel consumption to 20mpg or less, but behaving yourself on long motorway runs would hoist that to 25mpg or better, giving a potential between-fills range of more than 380 miles from the 70-litre/15.4-gallon tank and taking the edge off the tyre roar that was more obvious in small throttle opening driving.
Reliability-wise the V8s are strong. There had been cooling issues on earlier pre-facelift cars where coolant could get into the water pump bearing housing, causing leaking (signified by powdery deposits around the pump), corrosion and failure. Later cars had better water pumps and better cooling system pipework to get around the brittleness and leakage to which the gen-ones were prone.
Rattling timing chains and knocking supercharger couplings were a thing on pre-facelift cars, as were bad supercharger bearings which were given away by a constant whirring noise from the top of the engine. Again we have found no evidence to suggest that these continue to be issues on the new cars. Same goes for the occasionally jamming exhaust valves that affected some earlier Fs. As we always say in these guides it’s essential to keep on top of battery condition; even marginally poor batts can generate all sorts of faults, real or imagined.
The ZF8 box was supposed to be sealed for life, but sensible owners would plan for a fluid change at 70k miles. No facelift V8s were anywhere near that mileage at the time of writing. The odd transmission calibration/incorrectly programmed ECU issue has been raised.
On servicing, the cost of a 48-month service Jaguar plan for a 2020 R with 27,000 miles on it was just over £4,200 in May 2025, based on two payments of around £600 each followed by 35 monthly payments of £83. Independents typically charge around £320 for a small service on an R and around £550 for a big one.
CHASSIS
It was a good job that the V8 F-Type’s body panels were made from aluminium alloy, that the platform was bonded and riveted aluminium, and that the double-wishbone suspension was aluminium, because if more steel had been used these cars could well have crept over the two-tonne mark. As it was, the P575 still wasn’t exactly light at 1,818kg or 1,838kg for the Convertible. The 1,520kg weight of the 2017 P300 2.0 four-cyl F gives you a clue as to where much of the P575’s timber came from.
For the facelift R the chassis was uprated with new springs to go with the adaptive dampers, new anti-roll bars, new wheel bearings, and more tightly bushed rear knuckles and ball joints. Put a refreshed F-Type up against something sharper-edged like a mid-to-high spec 911 and you’ll notice the Jaguar’s slightly softer drive and ‘easier’ steering that was less nervous than the old F-Type’s helm. What you should also notice, however, and what’s perhaps most remarkable about the facelifted F-Type (though maybe not so remarkable if you’re familiar with Jaguar’s chassis design history) was its fine ride comfort and body control. In notable contrast to earlier Fs it oozed along the road with only serious mid-corner bumps occasionally unsettling it. Jaguar succeeded in giving the car a rear-wheel drive feel with far less inclination for the back end to be pinged out in an unexpected manner as had been the case in previous high-power F-Type derivatives.
The bushings and ball joints were beefed up for reasons, one of which was because they wore out quite quickly on the 575s. Dampers were also known to blow on the original Fs. The new car’s combination of weight and power means it’s common sense to keep an eye on the front suspension components in particular. As mentioned in the overview the 575hp R’s traction was maximised by all-wheel drive and an electronic diff. One press car that was being used for (very) hot laps went into front-wheel drive only mode when the diff temperature moved out of its comfort zone. That was fixed by a quick software reset the next day, but if you’re not able to command the instant attention of Jaguar techies you should bear in mind that there are perhaps more suitable track day cars. There have been instances of power steering problems and there is a Jaguar tech bulletin flying about online outlining the (quite large) number of possible causes.
Brake discs were 380mm front and 376mm rear, an unusually small difference that makes you wonder whether they could have cut costs by making them both the same. The carbon ceramic brake option cut out 21kg, a decent standalone saving but maybe not enough as a proportion of the car’s overall weight to justify the high cost unless you were determined to take your chances on regular trackdaying.
BODYWORK
Ian Callum designed the original F-Type body and most agree that it was a very nice piece of work. The rear three-quarter angle was especially plumptious. Jaguar design director Julian Thomson was tasked with the 2020 revamp. He did a good job, too. Some thought the front end look was a bit too closely aligned with the saloons, but Thomson did retain the essential Callum shape and added new vents to the ‘liquid metal’ surfacing of the clamshell bonnet along with a new front bumper, enlarged grille, new Pixel LED headlamps, skinny rear lights with sweeping indicators, revised 10-spoke wheels and some new paint options including spiffy bright blues and yellows. Many will recall eye-popping hues like Firesand Orange that were available in gen-one Fs but bright colours were evidently a step too far for too many potential buyers because they were quietly displaced in the facelifts by more sober ones. Some nice shades of green were still listed though. There were 12 core F-Type colours and another 16 in the SVO Premium Palette.
Fabric was preferred over metal for the Convertible’s roof in order to keep the centre of gravity low, though as usual the price for that was a body-stiffening parts weight hike over the coupe of around 20kg. The roof had a Thinsulate layer to deliver a level of thermal and noise insulation that Jaguar reckoned was on a par with metal.
The excellent ride quality in conjunction with the decent luggage capacity of 310 litres – or over 400 if you took away the parcel shelf and didn’t mind packing your chattels up to the glass – made the R coupe a perfectly valid grand touring choice as long as you could afford to keep filling it up. The Convertible wasn’t so versatile with under 200 litres of space, or about 130 if you ticked the box for the space-saver spare wheel. Electronic roof operation has shown itself to be a fault-prone process on many cars over the years, but you’d like to think that in terms of reliability they’re edging slowly out into the light so with luck you’ll be OK with the Jag’s one.
Earlier Fs were known for scratched side windows caused by grit getting past poorly fitting seals. Revised seals were retrofitted by Jaguar (even if they didn’t replace the affected glass) so this should no longer be a problem on the facelifts. Boot seals weren’t great either but again these have been sorted on the new cars.
INTERIOR
You wouldn’t call the interior of the F-Type R mega sporty but you would call it very comfortable as long as you weren’t taller than average, when you might find it a bit tight. Heated and cooled Windsor leather seats took good care of your body. The seating position was quite low, reducing the sensation or indeed reality of seeing out, but there were parking sensors at both ends to assist you in small spaces and the car, though not small, wasn’t outrageously large either. A rear traffic monitor was a useful option for anyone having to back out of a blind driveway.
Facelift changes on the inside of the F included a new 12.3-inch HD virtual instrument cluster with a full-screen map mode and a 10-inch Touch Pro infotainment screen that could be tough to see on a sunny day if you’d rolled back the blind on the otherwise excellent panoramic roof. The F-Pace had moved onto the more modern Pivi Pro system by 2020 but the F-Type didn’t.
The standard Jaguar sound system was 180w but a Meridian 770w 12-speaker system came with the Touch Plus package or you could choose a 380w ten-speaker Meridian setup. Apple CarPlay had become standard on the new 2020 cars but you still needed to take a cable with you because nothing was wireless. The speedo and tacho ‘needles’ on the driver’s TFT panel were given to stuttering, which could be annoying, but in better news the revised F-Type had an embedded Spotify app, a Jaguar first. Some thought had to go into storing things even as (relatively) small as smartphones because the centre console was also small, as were the door bins. There were two cupholders though, so you could survive on cup-a-soups if you weren’t able to find real food that fitted into the car.
A £600 Climate pack brought heat to the steering wheel along with two-zone climate control, which seemed an odd concept in a two-seater that you’d think would have a two-zone system by default, whether it’s left and right or up and down. Amusing visual distraction was at hand in the shape of the rising air vents and the HVAC controls were easy to use. It was harder to reconcile the perceived quality of the cabin to the price in dearer F-Type models.
PH VERDICT
It comes as something of a surprise to realise that the F-Type first went on sale in 2013. It doesn’t seem that long ago somehow. It’s fair to say that F-Type buyers weren’t guaranteed to get a spotless ownership experience. There were shortcomings, some of them endemic to the range, others particular to the high-powered versions, and there was always that underlying suspicion about Jaguar unreliability that the company fought so diligently to prolong.
Possibly for that reason the F-Type never seemed to be massively appreciated in the UK. Interestingly, US sales figures for the F were often higher year on year than they were for the Boxster or Cayman over there, which might say something about marque perception.
Obviously it’s early days yet but it looks like Jaguar paid full attention to the faults of the past and addressed them in the 2020 facelift. They improved the driving experience while they were at it too, addressing specific weaknesses noted by testers and owners. Unfortunately many of the F-Type owner club forums we looked at weren’t open to the public (why do owners clubs do that?) but the one that wasn’t too snooty to let outsiders in to get an insight into a possible purchase was far from being a litany of faults and complaints. Most of the issues mentioned were minor.
The only recalls we found were for a damaged seatbelt pretensioner tube, an extra and presumably unwanted layer of mesh in the passenger airbag door (how does that happen?), and the presence of an incorrect front bumper reinforcement panel. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff and a quantum leap over the list of recalls for pre-facelift cars which included words like ‘loss of control’, ‘compromised stability’, ‘fuel leaks’ and ‘fire’. What you’ve got now is a car that almost anyone can enjoy without fear. We’ve got a sneaking feeling that the revised F-Type could well turn out to be one of those cars that we’ll regret seeing the back of.
Especially in the 575hp flavour that we’ve been looking at here. In terms of horsepower for your buck it was hard to beat. If you were looking to spend the Jag R 75’s £103k asking price on something from the Porsche range it would only get you into a 380hp 911 Carrera 4. Even the £25,000 more expensive Carrera 4 GTS was still 100hp down on the F. Admittedly the Jag was nearly 200kg heavier than the GTS but the performance stats demonstrate that this did not constitute a drawback in the real world.
As noted at the beginning, facelift 575s start at under £50k. The most affordable coupe on PH Classifieds at the time of writing was this Santorini Black 2021 car with 32,000 miles on it at just under £55k. Add £8k to your budget and you’re in the market for this really rather nice 2022 7,000-miler in red. £64k on the nose gets you into the cheapest Convertible, this 8,000-mile car also from 2022.
I too like a previous poster prefer the look and noise of the earlier car's...the latest shape as posted, front end specifically is a little generic.
Interior architecture and quality have always been lacking imo.
I think jaguar was trying to sell it as a sports car, when actually it worst best as a GT. I didn’t like the car for a couple of years, until I saw one in dark blue and cream leather: much much better than some of the brash colours they were pushing in the papers.
Give me a pre-facelift dark blue one with a V6, I’m sure many people won’t feel like they need more!
Only 1 minor sensor issue during the total ownership period as well - bulletproof in my experience.
Must say though, the engine is an absolute masterpiece.. I bet a pre-facelift with less filters (and much less money) would be good fun.
Did confirm to me though that a car with this much power is just way too much for the UK, you can hardly use any of it's potential
Also prefer the pre-facelift looks too, the post-facelift just looks a little off to me
Back to the car, or rather the engine. I've set myself the target of owning a car with that engine in at some point in my life. Must be the best sounding engine in a fairly 'normal' car ever. Just spectacular.
I can't run to an expensive 2-seater with family demands, so it's likely to be one of the SUV variants.
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