Impressive XF
Jaguar now has a luxury sedan to woo all luxury sedan buyers, and not just Jag fans
Strong on-road presence, sleek design, cat-like agility, long luxury equipment list 
Engine could do with more low-end and a nicer exhaust note, feels heavy despite good handling Jaguar jumps back into the luxury sedan game with a strong contender
By Derryn Wong
THE NEW JAGUAR XF is a hugely important pivotal model for the leaping cat company. It is the last of the Ford era Jaguars and also the first major model for Jaguar under Indian conglomerate Tata’s ownership (although strictly speaking the sale hasn’t been completed yet). After the grand tourer XK, the XF is the second of a new breed of Jaguars designed under the direction of Ian Callum. The XK’s great lines and matching performance was a breath of fresh air to fans of the marque who finally had something to pit against the German powerhouses.
But making a grand tourer is quite a different undertaking from making a luxury sedan that has to duke it out with rivals such as BMW’s 5 Series and the (slightly aged) Mercedes-Benz E-Class. Ex-chief Joe Greenwell once said that Jaguar makes “special cars for special people”, but no car company would disdain a volume seller, except perhaps at the Pagani Zonda end of the scale.
The Concept-XF unveiled at Detroit last year was a gorgeous stunner of a vehicle and while some might lament the loss of cool in the concept-to-production process, we think a good chunk of the C-XF’s DNA still shines through.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the incorporation of round projector headlamp ‘eyes’ into the angular headlight units, which were downright cool, evil-looking slits on the concept car. These also give the car a visual link to the model it replaces, the S-Type, both cars featuring four circular headlamps and large, gaping grille.
While the S-Type had an almost 1930s roadster style oval grille, the XF gets a more contemporary looking rectangular one. One complaint of the old Jaguars was the overdone retro-styling, but the XF shows very little of that. With a contoured ‘power-bulge’, strongly sculpted side and shoulders as well as a sleek roofline, it’s really quite an attractive car with tons of on road presence.
Nice little touches include power vents behind the front wheels (which seem to be the new Jaguar family mark), angular Aston Martin-esque tail-lights and twin chrome tailpipes.
