Category: Exotic Sports 
Price Range: £60,995 to £66,995
Best-looking car in the class, sensational gearbox and an engine note to die for.
Lousy boot space and an interior that doesn't quite live up to the promise of that gorgeous body.
A first-rate evolutionary step on from the last XK, this is the best Grand Touring (GT) car that Jag has ever done. But it's not a sports car.
Jaguar's confidence in the XK's capabilities is such that it took us to some of the fastest roads on the planet. These are the road that spear across the wine region in South Africa's Cape district, roads where 120mph corners are commonplace, and where visibility is good enough that you can see for such a terrific distance that a 140mph cruise feels as safe as 30mph on the M1 on a Friday afternoon.
So how did it actually cope? Well, the level of grip on offer is pretty phenomenal and the chassis is marvellously neutral, in that it doesn't feel as though the front or rear will let go first, but rather, you'll go into a gentle four-wheel drift. Understeer simply isn't on the menu unless you turn all of the traction and stability control programmes off - and then only if you are pushing harder than you ought on a public road.
As a GT, the XK is an absolute five-star car. As a sports car, it's a five-star GT, meaning it lacks the rawness, edge and feedback through trouser-bottoms and fingertips that you'll find on our default car in this class, the Porsche 911 (for the record, we're tired of trotting out this line, so could somebody please make a better sportscar than the 911...).
As a GT, though, the XK is fabulous and as good a way to cover ground in great comfort and even greater speed, as we've found.
This is a chassis that can also plainly handle a whole lot more power - which means the supercharged XKR should be well worth the wait.
The new XK's 4.2-litre V8 develops 300bhp at a rather high 6,000rpm and 303lb-ft of torque at an equally peaky 4,100rpm. As a consequence, the XK feels just a tad sleepy when the revs are low - tyre-smoking, low-speed performance is just not on offer.
That's a bit disappointing, because this Jag offers up a simply wondrous engine noise. In fact, Jaguar engineers have gone to quite extraordinary lengths to ensure that the experience for both occupants and outside observers is first-rate. Ironically, the company describes the engine note as being that of a 'classically British sports car'. It's not: it's classically American, with a woolly woofle at low revs and then the most perfect NASCAR snarl as the engine speed races to redline. Beautiful.
The performance experience is enhanced no end by the latest generation of Jaguar's six-speed automatic transmission, which features Bosch Mechatronic (isn't that a marvellous word) adaptive shift. This means that in automatic mode, the system senses how you're driving and adapts the shift pattern to suit - which means if you're driving very hard, it'll hold onto gears to avoid any upsetting mid-corner upshifts, as well as shifting down earlier to ensure that you stay in the right bit of the rev range for press-on driving. In manual mode, the shifts are lightning-quick and we love that little blip of throttle as you shift down (it does that in auto mode, too).
For the record, the XK coupe will get to 60mph in 5.9secs and on to a top speed limited to 155mph. The convertible manages 60mph in 6.0secs and the same top end.
