Jaguar XF 4.2 V8/SV8 (2008-) Review

Overview

• Next: Reliability and Quality

It will be interesting to look back at the launch of this new Jaguar XF from the vantage point of some 10 years into the future. For then we will know the answer to one of the most talked about and important questions in the car industry of today: will it kill or cure the company?

Certainly if fortune ever favoured the brave, the XF would deliver Jaguar to the sunlit uplands of commercial and critical success that have so often eluded the Coventry brand in the last decade of misconceived product, botched marketing and the triumph of hope over cold, hard fact. One of these facts is this: neither the X-Type, the S-Type nor the XJ saloon have performed anywhere near the level their creators hoped for - which has left the gorgeous XK coupe to show that, when they do get the product right, there is still a considerable constituency of enthusiastic and appreciative fans who'd like nothing more than to drive around in a Jaguar.

So the pressure on the XF could hardly be greater. But it seems that Jaguar has taken a pragmatic, sensible approach to its conception and development, spending what must have been a limited budget in areas where it would really help and not attempting to create an entirely new car from scratch. So the supercharged and normally aspirated V8 engines available on the cars at its launch come unchanged from the XK coupe; it takes the XK's gearbox and suspension too, although both have been recalibrated for use in the XF. Even parts of the old S-Type, which was always a good car to drive, have been carried over, including a large amount of the floor.

What has changed, and beyond all recognition, is the car's appearance. No more for Jaguar the relentlessly retro approach that is perceived to have done the marque no favours at all in modern times. The XF is modern to the point of being avant-garde. So sleek is its shape that front and rear screens have exactly the same angle of rake as those on the XK, leading to four-door coupe style similar in concept, if not execution, to that of the Mercedes CLS. And from the front wheels rearward, it all works rather well. Only the nose with its ugly headlights contrive to make it look slightly strange from front three-quarter angles.

The style of the interior is harder to criticise. Its overall appearance is as svelte as anyone could hope from a 21st century Jaguar, while some of the detailing, like the transmission shifter wheel that rises out of the centre console and air vents that rotate into position when you press the starter are truly memorable pieces of theatre that, in reality, appear a lot less like gimmickry than you might expect.

When sales start in the UK next year, the V8s will be joined by a 3-litre V6 petrol model and, of course, a 2.7-litre V6 diesel, which should outsell every other combined in the British and European markets.

Prices start at £33,900 for an entry-level car with either V6 on board, rising to £54,900 to the very well-equipped supercharged Super V8.