And now we have the answer to the question: What would my British luxury convertible sound like if it were entered in the B-main at Eldora?

Not sitting in one right now? Poor thing. Here are some factoids to tide you over: Our test car was the F-Type with a 5.0-liter supercharged V8 (495 hp and 460 pound-feet of torque) mounted front-midships in the all-aluminum monocoque chassis and buttoned to an absolutely stellar eight-speed automatic gearbox with paddle shifters, a transmission that could vary in demeanor from syrupy smooth to taut as a strained leash, again depending on throttle delta and where the switches are set. The same is true of F-Type's torque-vectoring/limited-slip rear differential, which will allow you to dial up the tire smoke at will. You can also turn traction control off, but I didn't, and you shouldn't. You could smoke-screen a bank robbery with this car.

The F-Type is a new product for Jaguar, and in some respects, a new business. Jag has lately made some very fast big cars─XJ, XK, XF─but a proper compact sports coupe/convertible, a la 911? Not since the days of polio. Let's stop the clock at the Jaguar XK150, circa 1961. Interestingly, the F-Type is 176 inches long, within an inch of the XK150, but more than a foot wider.

The F-Type is a beaut, all right. The design of the front third of the car was heavily constrained by factors such as the size of the V-8 engine; hood height driven by pedestrian safety requirements; ventilation and cooling requirements; and accommodating Jaguar's grille design, the down-the-road graphic. Straight on, the F-Type looks like pure appetite, or the world's angriest Pokémon.

It's the flanks that make this car. Note the sucked-in contour at the lower door ahead of the rear wheel arch; note also the eye-fooling black rocker panels (the panels under the doors) that helps control spray and manage underbody aero without compromising that athletic waist. Note the edged-blade fineness of the rear fenders and decklid. The glowering taillamps, the chrome quad tailpipes. Hello, Bishop.

The cabin is a parade of right choices: The interior is sober and coolly modern, with LED-illuminated instrumentation and grace notes of materiality, such as the nubbed-rubber-and-aluminum toggles for the climate control or the bronze-like 'Ignis' metal on the start button, the shifter paddles and the dynamics switch. The leather sports seats, the same as in the XKR-S, are terrific. The F-Type's signature bit of drama is its powered climate vent that rises from the smooth slope of the upper dash. Too cool for school.

Some official numbers for the F-Type V8 S Roadster: 3,671 pounds (about 300 pounds more than the comparable Porsche 911 S Cabriolet); 0-60 mph in 4.2 seconds; 186 mph top speed. Those last three metrics are practically identical to those of the Porsche. Length, width, height are within fractions of the Porsche's.

Stuttgart, knock knock. Candygram.

At this point I'd ask the general reader to stand aside and let the nerds have the floor while I answer the question, How's it handle? Well, again, depending on where the dynamics switches are set. There's the one big go-fast switch in the gearshift console, or you can use the 5-inch touch-screen interface to dial in steering, suspension and powertrain parameters individually, though why?

Theoretically, being a front-engine car, the F-Type should be slower to rotate in a corner than the rear-engine 911, due to F-Type's distribution of mass and lower polar moment. Translation: The rear-engined car should be more nimble, more lively.

I suppose if we were to look at the telemetry for both cars around a racetrack, that might prove true, but the effect would be minimal. Modern suspension kinematics and tire design almost entirely neutralize the penalties of either front- or rear-engine layout.

In any event, the F-Type feels like it can match the 911 step for step. The front-end bites hard, the suspension composes itself instantly after initial turn-in, and the car puts a shoulder down. Midcorner, with the throttle held steady and the steering cranked, on the 20-inch Cyclone wheels and sport tires, the F-Type just rips and spits incandescently.

So Jag has built a car that satisfies our most refined aesthetic senses while manipulating the lowest regions of the lizard-y male mind. I feel so used.

And yet, I'm somehow OK with that.