It's Official: Jaguar's 'R' Brand Is Going To Die

We enjoyed living with ‘our’ Jaguar F-Type R long-term test car very much. It was fast, comfortable, just about handy enough in the bends and sounded utterly filthy, making us wonder why you’d bother with the SVR version. It seems we’re not alone in thinking that, and Jaguar has cottoned on to the problem.

“We have found F-Type R and F-Type SVR kind of compete against each other….SVR has a challenging time because the R is such a good car in the first place,” Jaguar SVO design director Wayne Burgess told Auto Express. He reckons the whole R/SVR thing is confusing customers, and there just isn’t enough distinction between the two.

The solution? Jaguar will eventually kill off the R brand, to “allow SVR to really shine.”

In the future, Jaguar models will have a sporty ‘S’ model, followed by the full-fat SVR with nothing in between. It’s something the British company has already done with the F-Pace - before the SVR version came along, the range was topped by the 375bhp V6 S. There hasn’t been an R version, nor will there be in the future. The F-Type R will remain on sale for now, but it will presumably be discontinued without a replacement when the current-generation of the sports car is retired.

Jaguar R brand: hold X to pay respects…