San Diego is one of my favorite cities, this coming from someone who calls Southern California home, but is so disenchanted by the traffic and how difficult it now seems to get anywhere. With that being said, I have few complaints about Jaguar having selected San Diego and the twisty secondary roads to the east of the city for us to get some seat time behind the wheel of the new XF sports sedan.
With Ford’s recent sale of its Jaguar and Land Rover brands to India’s Tata industrial conglomerate, the importance of this launch for Jaguar’s future can’t be underestimated; if ever there was a make-or-break launch for a vehicle manufacturer, this is it. And thankfully for Jaguar, the new XF is an outstanding vehicle – albeit one that is somewhat difficult to pigeonhole – that should help restore the leaping cat to a place of prominence in the luxury sport sedan marketplace.
Jaguar appears to be taking a page out of the Lexus launch book from 1989 in that they are offering a product that is sized, powered, and priced to place it in a niche without direct competition. For Lexus, it was positioning the original LS400 as a car sized and powered to compete against the then current BMW 7-series and Mercedes S-Class, but pricing it closer to the 5-series and E-Class. Jaguar, in offering the luxury model V8-powered XF at a price of $49,975, has introduced a stylish alternative sized and powered closer to the V8-powered 5-series and E-Class, but priced much closer to top-of-the-line 3-series and C-Class cars from their German competitors. It’s a compelling value story to be sure.
 But typically buyers in this segment are not so much value-conscious as they are status-conscious so Jaguar has its work cut out for themselves right from the start of the XF’s launch, with first cars reaching dealers about a month ago. The impact was immediate; against year ago sales, the XF contributed to a 13.2% rise versus 2007 numbers, 1,752 in 2008 against 1,667 in 2007. While 85 cars might not seem like much, it’s the first upwards tick in Jaguar sales in a long time and the XF was barely on-stream so it will take a few months of sales to fully measure the XF’s impact.
As far as the exterior is concerned, it does seem that some of the visual impact of the C-XF was lost in translation from concept to production car reality; this is not unexpected even though some critics have harped on this fact. Concept cars need to have impact on auto show turntables, production cars must have rear seats that can accommodate real people so the XF’s proportions had to conform to this reality. We can say that the spirit of Ian Callum’s C-XF concept lives in the production car and the styling elements mix in a way that portrays an exciting new design language for Jaguar.
The look of the car is unique, bold and contemporary in a way that leaves little chance that it will be mistaken for either its S-Type predecessor or its German competitors. In a world where cars in a given category – and as we mentioned earlier, the XF seems to straddle smaller and larger classes – the look is fresh yet dare we say, unmistakably Jaguar.
 On the inside, the cabin is world class. It takes the excellence we’ve come to expect from Audi and raised the bar to another level. The materials are top tier and the execution, more wood than previous Jaguars, but spread throughout the cabin, are warm and inviting with all controls having a high-quality feel. A high end touch is the soft blue ambient lighting throughout the cabin.
It’s no secret that when it comes to designing a great sounding audio system, speaker placement is an essential element and here, the engineering team at audio system supplier Bowers & Wilkins held a huge advantage; they started working on the system when the original C-XF concept was developed. Because of this, while 440 watts might not seem so impressive in comparison to other factory-installed premium branded systems, the cabin is so quiet and speaker placement so perfect, valuable amplifier power isn’t wasted.
The second element of the design that makes it work so well is the drivers themselves. While many other factory-installed premium-branded systems use massive amounts of equalization to sonically match relatively modest drivers (woofers, midranges, and tweeters) to the interior compartment, the Bowers & Wilkins team cut no corners as the system employs high-quality drivers at each and every location, thus insuring crystal clear sound. All-in-all, the system incorporates a total of 14 bespoke loudspeakers; four metal-dome tweeters strategically positioned to deliver smooth, even coverage to all four XF occupants, nine Kevlar-diaphragm woofer and mid/bass units, including a solo front-center and rear-surround pair, strategically located to preserve natural tonal balance and spatial localization, and a single, rear-mounted high-powered subwoofer that delivers true deep bass extension. Each amplifier channel is individually tailored to its respective loudspeaker by the system preamplifier-controller, making extensive use of advanced digital signal processing (DSP) techniques.
 For those of you for whom sound plays an important part of the driving experience, this is simply among the finest sounding factory-installed premium audio systems available, regardless of price. The result is exceptional clarity and very precise imaging and staging, especially in the Dolby Pro Logic II surround mode. Best of all, no concessions were made to provide boomy yet false bass; the system’s accuracy is above reproach and the package is perfectly tailored to the car. And yes, it has the prerequisite iPod connectivity, with direct interface through the in-dash display.
My audition disc is a DVD – which the integrated audio/navigations system handles – with hundreds of MP3 and WMA files, segmented first by decade, then by artist. So while many sound aficionados will always go for the default Dire Straits tracks, I prefer dozens of oldies from the sixties, many well-known tracks from the Beatles, Searchers, and other Brit Invasion bands (how appropriate for a Jaguar) collected over the years or ripped from my own CD collection. These compressed MP3s and WMA files simply came alive when played through the Dolby ProLogic processor, extracting details that I’ve missed all these years when listening to the tracks on dozens of high quality factory-installed and aftermarket systems, a testimony to the full-spectrum capabilities and balance of this system.
We had the pleasure of driving the top two models in the range. The premium luxury model ($55,975) equipped with a 300-horsepower normally-aspirated 4.2-liter V8 and waited until after lunch to get behind the wheel of the top model supercharged version. Mid-morning traffic exiting San Diego and heading east was fairly light and this gave us the opportunity to evaluate its freeway cruising characteristics.
The first thing we noticed was how stiff the overall structure felt; this is very elusive to measure so we are forced to take Jaguar’s word for it that the XF is the stiffest car in its class. They mentioned that to optimize the structure, 25 different grades of steel along with aluminum and magnesium were employed with the result being a suspension that is supple with steering inputs that are very tactile, transmitting the proper amount of feedback, even over expansion joints and lane bots.
The two-lane tarmac selected by the Jaguar team was obviously chosen to highlight the exceptional balance of the chassis. On the normally aspirated car set the rotary gear selector to sport, turn off the TracDSC traction control and let the fun begin. Using the paddle shifters connected to the six-speed ZF automatic transmission, the drive is utterly engaging, releasing your inner Formula One driver within, with reaction times 15% quicker that the XK sports car, which donated many of the all-important suspension bits and calibration benchmarks. With our shift points alternating between third and fourth gear and pegged at around 6,000 RPM, the XF simply devoured the road, in this case CA-96 which hugs the California-Mexico border.
 After lunch we got behind the wheel of the supercharged version ($62,975) and as great as the premium luxury model was in the morning session, the supercharged version is an entirely different kind of cat. The primary reason, Jaguar's Computer Active Technology Suspension (CATS) which is standard on the supercharged model. With CATS, all dampening is electronically controlled within milliseconds, balanced between road conditions and driving inputs. The result is a feel that is more sports sedan than luxury car, just the way we like it. Driving even more aggressively, using the ultra quick paddle shifters nearer to 6,500 RPM, the afternoon drive was even more spirited than the morning session. With 420-horsepower on tap, and all the electronic babysitters set to minimum intervention, it’s easy to steer the XF with one’s right foot.
While the premium luxury model was an exceptional buy, if it was any of the Automotive Traveler team going to talk to BofA or WaMu for a car loan, we’d opt for the larger (and probably longer term) monthly payment, bite the bullet and go for the top-spec supercharged model. In examining the competitive landscape, there seemed to be no competitor in its price class.
What does this all mean? To this observer, there’s a new sheriff in town and the safe choice is no longer the default choice. Historically, Jaguar has always meant something special, extraordinary. This essence seems to have been lost over the last 10 years under Ford’s stewardship as most Jaguars seemed to live primarily on past glories, especially visually, much to the continued detriment of the brand.
We believe that this is about to change. Because of the way the luxury market has evolved, Jaguar will never sell as many units as its German, Japanese, and US (Cadillac CTS) competitors. This is not a bad thing; Jaguars need to be iconoclastic and appeal to a buyer that wants something different and to not run with the pack. On that basis the new XF meets this objective squarely and promises a fresh start for a company that under new owners has a long way to go to return to past glories. That they do this with a virtually clean sheet of paper design is bold and fraught with risk, but in the final analysis, was their only option. The XF is a fine luxury sports sedan, one with the emphasis on sport, which is as we believe it should be.
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