FirstDrive: Jaguar XK
When drawing the first lines of a new Jaguar sports car, the pressure to combine modern design with the wealth of heritage at the brand must be enormous. There's no shortage of people ready to remind today's designers of the iconic status of models like the E-type.
Indeed, that particular model has made it into the New York Museum of Modern Art; only the third automobile to enter the Museum's design collection.
Then there's the pressure of creating a new design philosophy for a brand struggling to get its financial house in order.
It's not surprising, then, to learn about the level of detail that went into the new car, though the fact that it took one designer working for a full two years to come up with the new front light clusters seems extravagant in the extreme. The financial wizards at parent company Ford - which recently injected €1.2 billion into Jaguar - must be a little alarmed at the return on investment.
Jaguar was looking for more than simply a sports car to take on the likes of the Porsche 911; they also have to fit the XK into the grand tourer segment, up against newcomers like BMW's 6-Series and the Mercedes CLS.
So what of the end result? Well it's a rather mixed bag. In engineering terms, the car proves that Jaguar has taken enormous strides of late, as demonstrated by the stellar performance of the brand in recent reliability surveys. In design terms, we're less certain they've hit the right note.
From the rear the car looks mean and muscular, some parts strikingly similar to its distant cousin in the Ford family, the Aston Martin DB9.
The coupé - the better looking of the two versions - is also strikingly poised from a side profile, even if the side fins do look a little Japanese in flavour. The coupé's strongest feature is the fastback boot with the long rear window, which is far more evocative than the convertible's tail.
Perhaps the most difficult thing to get your head around initially is the oval grille at the front. Designers often talk of the front of a car being like a face. If so then the XK looks rather glum.
That's why we weren't taken with the convertible: match this quietly spoken front with the softer rear lines on the soft-top and it all becomes a little too bland. Overall, however, the designers deserve credit for the new XK in coupé form at least. In terms of power output, the new XK features Jaguar's trademark 4.2-litre engine, putting out 300 bhp and managing the 0-100km/h dash in 6.2 seconds. This is mated to a new six-speed transmission with three modes: automatic, sports and semi-automatic manual. The manual mode is controlled via paddles on the steering wheel (at last the ageing J-gate selector has been laid to rest).
While in many cars these are nothing more than F1 gimmickery, Jaguar claims its new system allows for complete changes of gear in less time than the BMW SMG system or even Audi's dual clutch DSG system. It is programmed to monitor driving style and predict your next gear requirement through a variety of monitors.
During our test we initially found the gear change in sports mode didn't feed our needs on the famous twisting Franschhoek climb outside Cape Town in South Africa. But in a later test car we found it very adaptive and always in tune with our needs.
Thankfully the power and pace is accompanied by a good set of brakes that anchor you to the road - something we came to rely on as we came out of a mountain corner to discover an ageing Ford overtaking a kerb-crawling truck.
Chassis design has also been improved, with the convertible now nearly as stiff as the outgoing coupé, thereby offering much better handling characteristics. Only at the upper end of the speed band did we find the steering losing a little feeling.
Aluminium is the material of choice for the body, keeping weight to a minimum. The build process took account of the fact that more parts in a car means more potential problems. Therefore the body structure comprises just 304 parts compared to 497 for the BMW 6-Series and 490 for the Mercedes SL.
Jaguar has chosen the middle ground in terms of acoustics; aiming to be both sporting and racy. The end result is a deep-throated V8 gurgle when you press the starter button. While it's not as raucous as its cousin the Aston Martin DB9, the sound is fitting for a car that's pitched against the likes of the Porsche 911.
New safety features on the XK include the usual cluster of airbags and roll-over protection for the convertible. It also includes a new patented deployable bonnet system that senses contact with a pedestrian and pushes the bonnet up to meet their fall, thereby reducing the impact force.
It's impressive and will save lives. As with all cars in this class, it comes with a very competent stability system that can also be switched off if, for example, you are on a track, or alternatively tuned down to allow for a more dynamic drive.
While it's hard to concentrate on the likes of in-car controls when you're behind the wheel, the touch-screen system adopted by Jaguar in this car has the beating not only of anything on offer in its own class, but sets a new standard for other executive manufacturers to meet. Forget BMW's iDrive or Audi's MMI; this system is so intuitive even a four-year-old could operate it.
The principle behind such systems is that people no longer want a cockpit that resembles a fighter jet, littered with hundreds of buttons. Instead they want a central control located on a nice clean central console. That's why the car firms have come up with central knob switches that control all the various functions by either twisting, turning or pushing a single switch.
The XK takes it much further, offering a touchscreen system that's modern in its design and layout. The fully wrapped leather interior and dash is a nice touch that gets away from the plastics on offer from others, offering a real touch of refinement. Prices start at €125,000 for the coupé and €135,000 for the convertible.
Our advice would be to save €10,000, forget about sunburn on the bald spot, and go for the sharper looking coupé.
That said, at this price you could pick up: a BMW 650 (€111,700); a Mercedes CLS 500 (€104,140) or even a CLS 55 AMG (€146,175) or a Porsche 911 Carrera (€130,450). Even the darling of last year, the BMW M5, isn't far off at €135,600.
In terms of competition, it doesn't get much stiffer. After all, few cars compete with the Porsche 911 and come away unscathed. We've driven most of these and several would offer more hair-raising performance, though the chassis and handling on the XK is now comparable with any of them.
While the XK offers ample punch, if you are looking for a little more bite, that's likely to come later in the year with the arrival of the supercharged XKR version.
However, for the outgoing model there's a premium of €18,000 on the supercharged R-version over the regular XK8, suggesting the new XKR could well be nearer to €150,000. It will have to offer something spectacular to justify the price.
