First and Last Drive: The 2024 Jaguar F-Type 75 Is a Tearful Farewell to Fierce Felines

The Jaguar marque's first two-seat sports car, the XK120 built between 1948 and 1954, made quite a splash in the market, setting an impressive (for its day) production-car speed record of 124.6 mph. A continuous 75-year line of graceful, pace-setting two- or two-plus-two-seat sports and grand touring coupes and convertibles powered by high-performing multi-cam engines will now end with the 2024 Jaguar F-Type 75 model. And while we dearly hope Jaguar engineers secretly are beavering away to develop an even prettier and higher-performing electric F-type successor, it's difficult not to get a bit misty-eyed as we close this impressive chapter in Jaguar and automotive history.

We can't promise that these 2024 Jaguar F-Type 75 editions will become investment-grade collector's items, but after two days spent crossing the Pyrenees mountains in a dash from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, we are prepared to comment on how much fun a buyer might have while waiting to find out.

In short, not much. There's a new grayish Giola green paint ($950) exclusive to the 75 models, and a menacing matte Ligurian black that'll set you back $10,450. Wheel centers and grille badges swap their red backgrounds for black, and the R and R Dynamic badges go black and gray, rather than red and green. New 20-inch black wheels feature five solid spokes on P450-grade on F-Type 75s, five split spokes on R 75s. Finally, the front fenders and sill plates are adorned with a subtle stylized silhouette of the coupe. Many former options are now standard, which means ordering an F-Type has never been easier. So the base P450 is gone, leaving the R-Dynamic as the entry model at premiums over last year's base coupe and convertible of $4,500 and $2,300, respectively. The 75-model coupe/convertible premium over last year's R-Dynamic is $6,000/$4,700, and the R 75 is priced just $4,500/$3,800 above the former R.

Our 500-mile farewell to piston-powered Jaguar sports cars starts in Sitges, Spain, just west of Barcelona. This pearl of the Mediterranean, a European gay mecca for decades, is also the birthplace of the founder of the world's largest family-owned spirits company: Don Facundo Bacardí. Sadly, the Casa Bacardi tasting room in old-town Sitges has closed for good, but we snap a selfie with a monument to the inventor of drinkable clear rum.

We join a 1948 XK120 for a beachfront photo op overlooking the Balearic Sea to launch our trip. Today's 305-mile run will include the most demanding roads, summiting the 6,798-foot Port de la Bonaigua pass, so we choose the 575-hp AWD 2024 Jaguar F-Type R 75 coupe for this leg. We spend an hour-plus on boring highways, skirting around the isolated peaks of Montserrat enjoying the interior's abundant quilted ebony leather with light oyster stitching, as well as views out the (now standard) panoramic roof.

We stop for a walk around the nucli antic (old town center) of historic Solsona, where a boy fell down a well and reported being comforted by a woman, after which townsfolk descended into the well and miraculously found a statue of the black Madonna. From here we begin to scale the Pyrenean foothills. This F-Type 75 chassis develops way more grip than we can use at prudent public-road speeds, and anyway, we enjoy slowing for the curves to revel in the exhaust pops and crackles with the variable exhaust manually set to its loud mode. It sounds quieter than we remember from F-Type drives at home, because here the motor-music is muffled by gasoline particulate filters. Of course, their muffling effect pales by comparison with that of the turbos many competing engines shout through.

Jaguar V-8s, like the I-6s before them, create memorable music. To date, we're unaware of a single electric motor capable of creating a joyful noise on its own, and despite the best efforts of sound engineers working with music conductors and the like, none of the fake noise these electric sports cars are serving up has inspired a syllable of rhapsodic prose.

As we near the tree line and start seeing snow beside the road, our supercharged engine proves as immune to the effects of altitude as its presumed electric successor will be. Cresting Spain's 10th highest mountain pass (Europe's 139th), we see skiers still plying the slopes of the Baqueira-Beret resort in late March. The pristine pavement provides no reason to switch the suspension out of Dynamic mode, and the broad sweeping curves leading up to the summit are ideally suited to this wide grand tourer.

On our route down the mountain, the center lane markers disappear as the road narrows, and the Jag F-Type 75 starts to feel a smidge zaftig. Although it's slightly shorter in length than a similar-performing Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS, it's 1.3 inches wider on a 6.7-inch-longer wheelbase and weighs about 400 pounds more. Its steering is far less precise and communicative, but the all-wheel drive makes it feel equally sure-footed, and giant 15.0-inch front/14.8-inch rear brakes happily haul this hustler down to the necessary walking pace before each skinny, blind corner.

We awake in the medieval Aragonese village of Lárrede and swap into a 2024 Jaguar F-Type 75 convertible for today's lower-altitude 185-mile dash to the Atlantic. The road out of town is the bumpiest we've yet encountered, giving us a chance to appreciate the added kidney torture of Dynamic versus normal modes. Very little chassis flex can be felt through the seats, but steering column shake betrays the diminished rigidity relative to the coupe. It's also noticeably louder in this cabin with the top up, for better (exhaust noise) and worse (road and wind noise).

We lower the top despite temps in the upper 40s to better appreciate an unobstructed view of the Pyrenees and Sierra de Illón. The climate control activates the central dash vents to keep us cozy with the windows up and the $500 wind-blocker installed between the roll hoops.

Even though the 20-inch tires are one size smaller than the R coupe's (255/35 and 295/30 versus 265/35 and 305/30), there's still way more grip than we can exploit here, and without too many chances to blast along at wide-open throttle, we don't miss the 131 hp and 88 lb-ft. Note that this is a German-spec car with RWD; American P450 F-Type 75s will all feature AWD. This may exaggerate the small performance deficit.

Soon our route leads to the A-15 autopista from Pamplona to San Sebastián where we notice there's no adaptive cruise (a radar lens might blight the car's beautiful face). The F-Type does have switchable lane-keep assist with no centering, so as not to muddy the steering feel. Soon we pull in for a photo op overlooking the Atlantic's Bay of Biscay in San Sebastián at Miramar Palace—former summer palace of the Spanish royal family.

As we reflect on our 500-mile odyssey over lunch at chef Pedro Subijana's three-Michelin-star Akelarre restaurant, we consider the 2024 Jaguar F-Type 75's merits. It still looks fabulous, it sounds even better, and if it can't quite match the dynamics of an equivalent Porsche 718 or 911, it'll always be vastly less ubiquitous. We'd definitely choose the convertible over a pricier and homelier Mercedes-AMG SL-Class, and we'd choose the coupe over the similarly stylish but less dynamically brilliant Lexus LC for dynamics. As for which of these final Jaguar F-Types to choose, we'd go for the coupe. What it loses in aural excitement, visibility, and vitamin D exposure, it more than makes up for in trunk space, refinement, rigidity, and most important—sinuous style. Get one while you can and do your best to wear it out by the time its value rises sufficiently to cover a thorough refurbishment.