The Jaguar F-Type Coupé is a car that combines pulse-quickening performance and agile handling with everyday refinement. It’s a machine of incredible allure and, with a starting price of £51,250, it offers great value when compared with German rivals. As such, it is deserving of this year’s AM Award for New Car of the Year.

If there is a car that encapsulates everything good about Jaguar in 2014, the F-Type Coupé is it. Like the roadster version Jaguar launched in 2013, this model offers striking good looks and stunning performance, yet at a £5,000 saving over the drop-top. What’s more, the coupé body means there’s a touch more practicality to it, with 407 litres of boot space for overnight bags or golf clubs.

Jaguar offers the F-Type Coupé in three versions: the 3.0-litre V6 with 335bhp, the V6 S with 376bhp, and the 5.0-litre V8 R with 543bhp, with derivatives in rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive form to ensure there’s a model to meet most tastes and capable of giving an exhilarating driving experience that rivals a Porsche 911. With CO2 emissions as low as 199g/km, it is the cleanest in its class.

Inside, the F-Type Coupé serves up a combination of quality and quirkiness, with excellent materials, leather sports seats, aluminium touches, a colour touchscreen display and a driving mode selector based on switchgear from a fighter plane.

The F-Type Coupé is a clear sign that Jaguar is back and prepared to take on the market-leading premium brands.

Category sponsor: Supagard

Shortlisted
Audi TT Coupé
Kia Soul
Mercedes-Benz C-Class

Previous winners
2014 Volkswagen Golf; 2013 Mercedes-Benz A-Class; 2012 Range Rover Evoque