There are so many questions
about the new Jaguar XF.
How much is it?
Who will own the company tomorrow?
But the biggest question of the lot is this:
how in the name of all that’s holy is Jaguar still with us?
The problems began in the mid1970s,
when Jaguar was part of the Communist party. Back then, everyone at British
Leyland
was so enamoured of the Soviets, they came within an ace of renaming it the
Large Car Division.
I’m surprised they didn’t settle on Lada.
Eventually Jaguar was sold off
to Ford, which never really understood what Jaguar was all about.
The people at Ford managed Aston Martin well, and Land Rover too, but Jaguar
stumped them.
They couldn’t even say it properly.
And so, in the past few years,
we got the new XJ, which looks like a fatter version of the old XJ. We got
the X-type, which was
an expensive way of buying a Contour, and we got the S-type.
Which was a Lincoln dressed in a tweed suit.
And fitted with an idiotic nose.
Of course we also got the new
XK, which is a brilliant car.
However, buying one is the same as standing on top of a very tall building
with a megaphone, telling everyone that you can’t
afford an Aston Martin.
Then of course Ford lost all
its money. And then it lost all of everyone else’s money, and so, while the
boffins and the stylists
were beavering away on the new XF, Jaguar was put up for sale. “Wanted: someone
to buy a car company that no one
understands. Has made little or no profit for 20 years or more. Offers in
excess of £1 billion. Willing to p/ex Land Rover as well.”
Weirdly, it seems an Indian
company called Tata, which makes horrid cars for people who are fed up with
falling off their motor
scooters, is said to be interested. God, I bet Gandhi is laughing his socks
off. And I bet you’re very sad that this once great
British manufacturer has been allowed to sink to such depths.
The thing is, though: should you be sad? Was Jaguar ever really that great?
Oh I’m sure people in chunky
jumpers will be choking on their pipes at this outrageous proposition.
They’ll point out that in 1948 the XK120 was the fastest production car in
the world and that the D-type married monocoque
thinking with aeronautical design. And that with Lofty England at the helm
it won Le Mans in 1876, or something.
This is all true. But claiming
that Jaguar is great today because of something it did in the 1950s is like
claiming Egypt is a
world power because of the pharaohs.
The fact is that in my lifetime Jaguar’s forages into the realm of brilliance
have been few and far between.
Then along came Arthur Daley,
whose comic genius overshadowed anything achieved at Le Mans by Lofty England.
As a result, Jaguars became vodka-and-tonic cars for the sheepskin classes.
A car you drove when your taxi was at the menders.
There was an attempt to get
back on track with the XJ220 but that all went horribly wrong.
Customers put down a deposit on what they’d been told was a four-wheel-drive
V12 supercar and were understandably
miffed when they found the actual car was two-wheel drive and had the engine
from a Metro.
Some resorted to the law to try to get their money back.
Then there was the XJR-15, which
crashed a lot, and the much publicised foray into Formula One, which blew
up, didn’t start
or cruised around quite slowly at the back.
We like to think, then, that
Jaguar’s history is as rich and as lustrous as a maharajah’s bathrobe, but
the truth is, it’s a mishmash
of strikes, unreliability, sheepskin, failure, vodka, tonic and public humiliation.
In fact I would venture to suggest that the
company’s reputation among the vast majority these days hangs solely on one
car: the E-type – Jaguar’s 1966.
That’s why we care where Jags
are made.
That’s why we care about who owns them.
That’s why we care about the new XF. So here goes . . .
First, there’s the styling.
Jaguar says it looks like the stunning concept car we saw a couple of years
ago but I’m not so sure.
Some of the exquisite detailing on the concept – the guardsman-sharp creases
on the bonnet and razor-thin headlamps
– have not made it onto the production car.
And I’m sorry but arguing that
the two have the same proportions and stance is like saying I have the same
proportions
and stance as Brad Pitt. I do. But I’m never asked for his autograph.
Had there been no concept car,
I would never have known how good the XF could look. But there was, so I’m
sorry but as a
styling exercise the finished product just doesn’t float my boat.
In fact when I came home to
find it sitting in my drive I thought it was a Contour and ignored it for
two days.
When I finally took it for a drive the disappointments kept on coming. The
dimmed headlamps are not bright enough,
the light switch is on the indicator stalk – a hallmark of cost-cutting –
the cruise control wasn’t working, the throttle felt slack,
the sat nav screen was unreadable thanks to too many reflections, and the
windows don’t work when the ignition is off.
Then there’s the starting procedure.
To earn extra points from the Euro NCAP safety people, Jag, like everyone
else, has
replaced the traditional ignition key, which can damage your kneecap in a
frontal crash, with a starter button.
But unlike in everyone else’s cars sometimes the starter button doesn’t actually
start the engine. I don’t know why.
But I do know that by the time
I’d got out, remembered the window was down, got back in and spent God knows
how long
trying to coax some life back into the ignition system, I was purple with
righteous indignation.
And then there’s the gearbox.
It’s a normal auto but you can override it with paddles behind the wheel.
Lovely.
But if you change down into, say fourth, it won’t, after a while, go back
into drive. Not unless you put the circular lever into
“Sport” and then back into “D” again. This is wearisome and indicates that
the whole car was built on a bit of a shoestring.
There isn’t that much rear legroom either.
Strangely, however, despite
all of this, I enjoyed my time with the XF enormously. I’d have one over an
equivalent BMW,
Audi or Lexus any day. First of all, the interior is such a joyous place
to sit. The high centre console makes you feel hemmed in,
cocooned, safe. The materials used are modern, such as you would find at Zurich
airport. The leather is hand-stitched with
contrasting cotton and the blue lighting is brilliant. It doesn’t feel remotely
like a Jag in there. And is that a bad thing?
It doesn’t feel like a Jag to
drive either. It’s quite noisy, for a kick-off, and it rides with a firmness
that would shake the pile
out of a car salesmans' coat. The firmness is never uncomfortable, as it
is in an Audi. It’s not a jiggliness that annoys.
It’s a feeling that the suspension is sorted and that if you put your foot
down, all will be well.
It is. It may have the same
engine as Noah used in his ark but as a car for covering ground, on side
roads, my God.
You can forget your BMWs. This is fanbleedingtastic. Balanced. Meaty. Pretty
soon you’ll not give a damn that the light
switch is on the indicator stalk and you won’t worry about the poor dimmed-beam
lighting either.
The beam from your smile will illuminate the road ahead well enough.
This, then, is a car that’s
flawed and fantastic, irritating and rewarding, mad and bad. But when all
is said and done
– and this is the nonsensical joy of cars – I liked it. I looked forward
to driving it. I’m sad it’s not here any more.
Because of this I have a sneaking
suspicion that Jag, after 40 years of misery, is about to have the most delightful
Indian summer.
Vital statistics
Model Jaguar XF SV8
Engine 4196cc, eight cylinders
Power 416bhp @ 6250rpm
Torque 413 lb ft @ 3500rpm
Transmission Six-speed auto with paddle shift
Fuel 22.4mpg (combined cycle)
Acceleration 0-60 in 5.1sec
Top speed 155mph (limited)
Price C$62000 - C$87,000
Rating 
Verdict Superbad
