Jaguar's young driver experience
We take an 11-year-old to drive Jaguars around a track. What could go wrong?


Words by: Erin Baker
Published on 23 March 2018 | 0 min read
It’s a surreal sight, to see young children at the wheel of £50,000, high-performance cars. What’s even stranger is that they’re not weaving on and off the track, braking and accelerating harshly, or jerking the car round a bend. They all appear to be fully in control, moderating speed gently, steering flawlessly, and reversing without knocking a single cone down. What’s going on?

This track is in the Cotswolds, although the experience moves round the country. As well as the Jaguar track experience we’re at, there’s also a Land Rover off-road experience available. I’m here with Matt, the 11-year-old son of my cousin. All he wants to know is whether he’s allowed to get up to 60mph, which he heard someone else did. Luckily, the instructor is a patient man. We start off, perhaps wisely, with the F-Pace SUV. There are dual-control pedals in all the cars, thank goodness. Accompanying adults are allowed to sit in the back, so I clamber in with Matt’s dad. We buckle up. It turns out Matt’s dad is better than I am, and he doesn’t utter a word as we set off, whereas I let out the occasional squeal when Matt decides to see what happens if he presses the accelerator pedal hard. It’s not my fault; I challenge any adult to stay calm when the 11-year-old they’re about to get in a car with asks his dad: “Do you think they’ll let me drift it? ‘Cos I know how to do that.”

The other stark change from when we parents learned to drive in the 80s and 90s is the addition these days of parking sensors and cameras. The instructor asked Matt to reverse into a bay, marked by cones, using the camera instead of looking behind him. He could even choose between a reversing camera and 360-degree camera. It was a doddle for him, from gaming screen to in-car screen.

Matt should have no trouble passing his test; that generation just seems born to drive. The only questions are whether any of them will ever want to own a car, and whether there will be any driving left to do, once autonomous tech gets properly underway. Let’s hope a sports car on a country lane, on a sunny spring day, still appeals in ten years’ time.
