A Prowling Success
Jaguar has forward orders aplenty for the new XF sedan, the car it hopes will revitalise the leaping cat brand. But Bill McKinnon questions whether the suave newcomer can put one over its key German rivals...
While styling is always important in the success – or failure – of any new car, it has been the dominant influence over Jaguar’s fortunes since the brand’s birth in the 1930s.
In the mid 20th century, Jaguar was renowned for its innovative design, which captured the tension, grace and power of its feline namesake in beautiful metal forms.
However, since the E-Type coupé and the XJ sedan in the 1960s, Jaguar’s design language has stopped evolving. A Jaguar is still a beautiful thing, but it looks like an old beautiful thing.
Hence the average age of a Jaguar customer is now 57, and rising. As Mick Mohan, Director of Programmes for Jaguar, admits: “Identity is the issue with our brand.”
It has to find a younger audience, because the true believers will all soon be, well, dead. Jaguar needs a car that can break free of the styling cage created by icons which now seem very long in the tooth.
Enter the XF. Jaguar’s new mid-size sedan goes up against BMW’s 5-Series, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Audi’s A6 and the Lexus GS. Jaguar’s Chief Designer Ian Callum faced the unenviable task of trying to make it look like a Jag should look, but in a 21st century context. So it wraps a four-door sedan in the rakish lines of a coupé, with some traditional Jaguar styling cues including the ‘Leaper’ on the boot, vertical blades on the front guards and minimal badging.
Does it work? The market seems to think so. Jaguar claims to be holding 20,000 forward orders for the car around the world and its performance in the US market will be critical.
The XF also comes at a pivotal time for the British brand. In the hands of Ford since 1989, its abysmal quality and reliability standards have improved dramatically, and it now scores very well in independent quality and owner satisfaction surveys.
However, in the past decade, its ‘new’ models – though certainly competent and competitive – have cost rather than made money, and Ford has torn up billions of dollars.
So it’s ironic that Ford’s decision to sell Jaguar (and Land Rover) to the Indian Tata Group this year coincided with its first profit-making quarter (Jan-Mar ‘08) under Ford’s ownership.
Mohan claims Tata bought Jaguar on the basis of a plan already determined under Ford that will see this profitability sustained. Again, it all swings on the XF, though Mohan admits that a two-seater sports car is still under consideration. Car enthusiasts might remember the F-Type concept at the Sydney Motor Show a few years back. That was a stunning two-seater sportster, in the same style as the Porsche Boxster, that Jaguar inexplicably decided to leave on the shelf.
If Jaguar wants to attract younger buyers, it desperately needs a car like the F-Type.
The XF is a fine drive, but it’s up against some formidable opposition and has no compelling advantage in any significant area. It is relatively big and heavy – the need to cut costs from the project prevented the use of an aluminium body like the XJ and XK – so it’s a decidedly less sporty, less athletic handler than BMW’s light, tight 5-Series.
The pick of the engines is the 152kW 2.7-litre twin turbo-diesel, priced at $105,500. The same money buys a Ford-sourced 175kW 3.0-litre petrol V6, with surprisingly spirited performance in a car of this size and weight.
The two V8 offerings are shared with the XJ and XK. The naturally-aspirated 219kW 4.2, at $130,500, is now falling off the pace in specification and performance against its German rivals; the 306kW supercharged version, called the SV8, is still all muscle in the classic Jaguar tradition, and at $166,700 is very much in the contest against BMW’s 550i and the Mercedes E500.
