This weekend, Jaguar Land Rover Malaysia held an exclusive driving experience known as Jaguar The Art of Performance Tour. It was held at Setia Alam Convention Centre as a part of the brand's tour in Asia Pacific region. The event consisted of 3 slots for each day; morning, noon, and evening, and I took the last card with my friend for yesterday's drive.
Car enthusiasts or newbies to Jaguar could have a look on three distinctive models from the meow marque, notably the compact-luxury sedan Jaguar XE, the mid-size sports sedan XF, and the bold-looking Jaguar F-Pace, with an all-new 2.0 4-banger Ingenium petrol engine which was scheduled to be launched soon at the nearest JLR showroom around Malaysia.
The tour itself was not your average driving events made by any manufacturers, where Jaguar was pushing really hard to entertain most people with all the technologies and the capabilities of their vehicles. At the same time, participants would learn a lot about any driving situations of handling a car with or without driving aids in the XE or the XF, and took the wheel in the F-Pace while showing their driving skills with the help of the Smart Cones, which I will explain it later.
The XE and XF
The bold-looking Jaguar F-Pace, available for the test drive during the day itself.
Participants will have to climb inside any Land Rover shuttle cars to go for each driving session according to their slots.
The Smart Cone course.
As our event slots were delayed due to heavy rain, we were simply waiting inside the big tent with all the participants until the staffs called our names. But before that, we walked to the registration counter just to double check our registration from the JLR webpage, and then we went to the chilling area to check out the F-Pace 2.0.
There's some photos of the Ice Drive in Sweden on the wall too
Tags on!
Here's the zone for all our needs, foods, drinks, you name it.
With the help of a VR glasses, the glasses could display the F-Pace virtually once it detected the 'engine box' as seen on the picture.
Thirty minutes later, our names are called upon to go to the other room for the briefing session including the introduction of the all-new F-Pace 2.0 and the driving session itself throughout the day.
The first thing that we knew was about the whole glimpse of the F-Pace with its new in-house 4-cylinder twin-scroll turbocharged Ingenium engine (not Ford EcoBoost engine ah! JLR no want them already), utilizing 250 PS and 365 Nm of torque in all four wheels.
Next, we were listening to the briefing session of the of the real deal itself. So, Mr. James Veerapen, who was one of the Proton Motorsports R3 racing driver, explained about two types of driving stations, namely the Dynamic Station which focused on driving aids, and Smart Cones Station where participants could fulfill their driving skills and understand their driving manners around the small circuit.
Mr James Veerapen explained the two driving stations to all the participants.
15 minutes after the briefing session, we went out of the place and got inside a Land Rover Discovery Sport shuttle car to go to the Dynamic Station.
Once we were reached to the station, we walked to the tent for a small briefing for the activities at the station itself. This station consisted of Jaguar XEs and XFs, which were professionally guided by three professional drivers. It provided a small track with a large vinyl surface filled with home detergents to make a slippery road feel. Newbies might be scared when they got behind the wheel to this sort of road at first, but once they tried it, they would understand how to surpass it in any emergency situation.
In addition, this session was all about driving with and without electronic aids, including anti-lock brakes system (ABS) and traction control system (ESC). We were first trying out the XF, and got the feeling with and without ESC.
Here's a short brief of the training itself regarding about ESC.
After that, it was our turn to get behind the wheel and feel a half-million ringgit car with and without the electronic nannies.
Once we tried the ESC, we moved to another XF. And this time, it has no ABS!
Without ABS and ESC, the XF was pretty scary for most drivers to drive in case of emergency. Once we finished the session, we had a surprise party, which involved drifting. Sadly, this one was strictly made by professionals, huhuuuu. But it's okay, as we were riding shotgun while embracing the G forces inside the cabin with Initial D vibe in our minds!
"Dejavu! I just been in this place before! Higher on the street and I know it's my turn to go!"
The first session was completed, and all the Jags gone dirty after all the stunts and drives they had been through.
Afterwards, we went to the second station which was the Smart Cones Station. This station involved precision driving with the help of the cones with a built-in sensor called Smart Cones. No other manufacturers had these sort of driving activities, and Jaguar was one of the first to provide a military-grade tech for the tour. Each car was attached with two antennas at the back to provide a signal once the car passed by the two cones in the middle, but at the same time, it was monitored by GPS. The cones could detect whether the driver was not driving through the cones in dead center. Also, the driver's driving behavior was monitored when it comes to speed, agility and accuracy. These criteria corresponded to the points on the TV screen after the driver finished the course, and he/she only had two runs for the session. Two Jaguar F-Pace 2.0s were provided for each two participants, and guided by professionals at the passenger seat.
According to the staffs of the tour, not everyone could manage to get the highest points on the course itself, as most of them could achieve a point between 30000 to 38000. Like seriously, I myself couldn't make it higher than that.
The key to get a better score was to be patient at all times and pass the green light cones before proceeding to the blue light cones, which would turn green right after passing through the previous one. Once I got into the car and get into the track, I was really aggressive on the throttle and the steering wheel, leading to a horrible understeer which delayed my time to pass through the cone. Compared to my friend's driving, he did pretty well as he drove the F-Pace delicately at any cones. After both runs completed, my score was somewhere at that same range like what others did, and my friend surpassed the 40000 points.
Here's the video of my friend tackling the Smart Cones!
So how was it feels like after the tour? It was really extravagantly awesome! We learned a lot about their cars and the capabilities, as well as driving in uneven situations and be a better driver in any types of corners like a pro.
In short, Jaguar Land Rover Malaysia did an extremely overwhelming job that brought all the participants to have an awesome experience in Jaguar vehicles including all the hospitalities and driver training. From what I had seen, this was one of the best strategy to boost their sales and brand image to future customers and I hope that this tour will continue in the future to connect more car people around the country.
Special thanks to Jaguar Land Rover Malaysia who brought this awesome The Art Of Performance Tour.
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