New Jaguar XJ

Jaguar is launching it's most daring saloon in 40 years, a new-look XJ flagship that extends and emphasises the design themes of it's XF saloon. Above all the new car makes a decisive break from the traditional but time-expired XJ look that was introduced by Sir William Lyons with the original XJ in 1968 and used for at least five iterations since. The new car was revealed at a celebrity packed ceremony at London's Saatchi Gallery a venue chosen to emphasise the extent of this new Jaguar's break with the past. The new model's key mission is to shore up Jaguar's crumbling foot hold in the luxury saloon sector, a presence which despite the well recognised road ability and technical excellence of the outgoing model, has been in decline for years.

The new XJ's all-aluminium construction means that it weighs about 1650kg Three different engines are offered a supercharged 5.0 litre all alloy petrol V8 a normal aspirated version of the same engine, and a 3.0 litre twin-turbo diesel. Each drives the rear wheels through a six-speed electronically controlled ZF auto box which has the same paddle-shift manual overrides as the XK and XF models. The super charged V8, which Jaguar is at pains to call a new design on different bore centres from the outgoing 4.2 litre unit, comes with two power outputs, 503 bhp and 464bhp. The normally aspirated 5.0 litre V8 is good for 380 bhp. Three specifications of trim and pricing is offered luxury, premium luxury and portfolio which from the names of them are all impressively trimmed and well equiped.

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