Jaguar SUV to be called F-Pace

The pull of potential SUV sales success has sucked Jaguar into the vortex with its first crossover.

Just as Porsche used the original Cayenne to save the company, and continue the success of its classic 911 sports car, the British brand is confident of future growth with the car originally previewed as the C-X17 concept.

The newcomer is called the F-Pace and will be ready for showrooms in 2016. The inevitable arrival of a high-performance version is likely to see the creation of an F-Pace R.

The F-Pace is the latest stretch for the Jaguar Land Rover group and comes in the final countdown to the make-or-break XE compact car, but chief designer Ian Callum does not see any conflict with the four-wheel drive Range Rovers at the other half of the company.

It's a crossover with an on-road focus

"Our car will be very different," Callum reveals to CarsGuide at the Detroit motor show. "It won't be an off-road four-wheel drive. It's a crossover with an on-road focus. That's the major difference."

It also helps that the SUV is based on the F-Type sports car, which helps explain its name.

Jaguar sprang a carefully-set ambush on the day before Detroit, revealing the name and details of the production C-X17 before another of the rival brands could unveil their concept cars.

It also trumped Bentley, which confirmed at the show it's heavyweight SUV would go into production as the Bentayga. It combines the names of the Roque Bentayga, a rugged peak in the Canary Islands, and the Taiga snow forest.

At Jaguar, the F-Pace name is also a nod to the original Jaguar boss, Sir William Lions, who said his cars had "Grace, pace and space".

It has to be sexy

That could point to an F-Space and an F-Grace, although that's extremely unlikely.

"I don't think so," says Callum.

He reveals the conflict in designing an SUV after working so hard to reinvent a Jaguar style direction for the 21st century.

"It has to be sexy. It has been difficult because it goes against every muscle of your body in some ways," he says.

"Once I realised that a crossover makes good business sense and that, for a lot of young people, they don't know anything else other than crossovers, I said to our team ‘We've got to embrace this car'.

"We will push back on this obsession of getting the biggest volume inside, the biggest capacity and the largest tailgate opening. I wasn't going to buy into that."