A teeny-tiny car with a big-assed engine. That's how you make a sports car.
And I must say that I view the new XJ as the best looking Jag in recent memory. A delicious machine inside and out. But then I am partial to sedans and cruisers anyways.

I'll start off by saying that I love everything about the F-Type and then now we'll move on to the matter of how to build a sportscar. You say small car / big engine is how you do it. well, not necessarily. For a sports car it needs to go around turns properly. It doesn't NEED a big-assed engine to do that and in fact Chevrolet proved for many years with the Corvette that focusing on the engine instead of the handling is the best way to NOT build a sportscar (lets face it, the corvette was basically a very racy-looking musclecar until recently). Even the Europeans have recently shown with some of their concepts and short-run vehicles that putting a big engine in a small car is hard to get right if the car isn't done well to begin with. That's why the Miata works so well as a sportscar no matter WHAT'S under the hood. It has a fantastic chassis with perfect balance. It works perfectly with a 4cyl, a rotary, and a big ol' LSx.

That's what Jaguar have done with the F-Type. Yeah they gave it a huge sack of power under the hood and it screams and snarls all the way in a way that makes your neck hair stand on end (in the best way possible) but it goes around turns at speed BRILLIANTLY and is a hoot around the skidpad. That's a sportscar. Speed is personal preference but a sportscar is a sportscar when it turns in a way that doesn't end in death.

A low-horsepower car is not considered a sports car in anyone's book. Horsepower and the performance such power would promise is the bedrock of what makes a performance vehicle perform. Precision handling is of-course important, vital even, but if you can't do it at frightening speeds, then what have you accomplished? The GTO without the balls-out V8 is just a Tempest. BMW 3s and 5s are great handlers, but to really have fun, you go M3 or M5 or you go home. A Mercedes-Benz whatever is nice, but a Mercedes-Benz AMG is so much better. And all you have is an AC Ace until you drop a Cleveland V8 into it, to get your Shelby Cobra.
Corvette started out as an homage to Euro roadsters. The C1s even had an inline-6 mill to keep up the look. But it wasn't really a balls-out zoomer. Ford replied to Corvette with Thunderbird. That's all you should need to know. Hell, the Vettes of the 80s were out-muscled by a BUICK of all things. And while Corvette was all about style and presence, the true muscle cars (Mustang, Camaro, Firebird, Challenger, Barracuda, Charger, etc.) were all about loud and ballsy straight-line performance. None of that fancy cutting-horse shit. Just straight-line, Main Drag Saturday Night numbers. And you are entirely correct: Corvette never really got serious about Euro-style performance until the C6s came out, with their rear transaxles and other fancy-shmancy high-performance hardware.
And Miata is a thoroughly delightful little roadster, but no one will ever mistake one of those things for a sports car. Not with a four-banger that doesn't even produce two hundred horsepower, they won't. Miata is a "sporty roadster"...the best one on the market, really...but it will never be a sports car.

While I don't entirely agree with skyfyre. You don't always need a metric ton of engine to make a car fast, if the car weighs next to nothing. But at the same time, the more engine you add, the faster its gonna go.

MX-5 Miatas are NOT creampuff vehicles, by any stretch. And even the most power-addled gearheads enjoy driving them, because of the tremendous fun factor that the plucky little machine has. And need I emote on the legacy of the Mini Cooper Ss, which won so many Euro road rallies back in the day they started disqualifying them after they had won, just because? Or the potency of Fiat Abarths? hell, even Dodge Neon SRTs are renowned for doing so much with so little.
But while these audacious zippers have their place and well-deserved reverence, they're still not what most consider "true" sports cars, which tend to be defined by the amount of ponies under the hood/behind the seats. Hell, my seven-year-old Buick Lacrosse still has impressive go power after 230k, with only 210 horsepower and a four-speed auto. But I would never call it a sports sedan, because I know better.
To each their own ultimately, of course.

I wasn't speaking exactly on the definition of the sports car. Because I don't care... I only care about how fun something is to drive.

And that IS the precise attitude to embrace.

I want 5 of them. :3

It's a jaaaaag!

the coupe is effing gorgeous

God do I love this car. Gorgeous <3