Jaguar XE - why it deserves to succeed

FORGET Euro 2016. The most realistic chance of watching England going up against the Germans and giving them a comprehensive thrashing is in the car mags, sometime next spring.

It’s not often you get three hugely important automotive unveilings within a week of each other, but that’s precisely what happened when the Land Rover Discovery Sport, Mazda’s new MX-5 and Jaguar’s XE all waded into your Twitter feed at roughly the same moment. For what it’s worth, it’s the unveiling of only the fourth MX-5 in 25 years which pressed all my petrolhead buttons, but that’s a small, open top sports car enjoyed by hedonists in search of a hairpin bend in the Welsh countryside.

The XE, on the other hand, could very well be the most important new car launched this year. Largely because it offers to take the fight to the BMW 3-Series and Audi A4 and actually win. A victory which – and I know Jaguar Land Rover is owned by an Indian conglomerate – would be fantastic news for UK Plc.

It’d be a particularly hard-earned result if the Jaguar’s new saloon did pull it off because – in a well-established tradition of so-near-yet-so-far established by England’s footballers on their business trip to Italy back in 1990 -  the company got so close to pulling it off originally with the X-type 14 years ago.

It was far from a bad car, essentially being an improved and upgraded twist on the hugely accomplished Mk3 Ford Mondeo, but even being that wasn’t quite as talented as the contemporary 3-Series, and as a result few BMW salesmen lost any sleep over the British upstart. All anybody remembers about it now is it being a bit of an also-ran in terms of sales figures and (unfairly) that it’s a Mondeo-in-drag.

The XE, on the other hand, has got everything going for it. It’ll be keenly priced - £27,000 should get you into the entry-level version – and comes with the exactly the sort of small diesel engine which has helped the 3-Series storm past the Mondeo to earn the top spot as Britain’s favourite big saloon. It’ll also be rear-wheel-drive (which is important, given the X-type was also castigated for being propelled by the ‘wrong’ wheels) and it looks like a younger, fresher version of the XF, which is a bit like Dannii Minogue looking like a younger, fresher version of Kylie.

Obviously, the real proof will be out on Britain’s roads in a few months time, when we’ll discover whether England really has scored the automotive equivalent of 5-1 over BMW and Audi. If it has, expected every motorway outside lane to be packed with XEs this time next year.

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The Jaguar F-type may be beautiful, but...

THE other day I ticked off another entry from my car lover’s bucket list. I have, after what feels like an eternity, finally driven the Jaguar F-type.

While there’s a full Life On Cars review on the way – and therefore powder to be kept dry – it was a truly special set of wheels which I loved and hated in almost equal measure. I loved it because it’s a lucid, loveable celebration of what talented British engineers achieve when the money men actually get behind their vision for a change, and because it’s those increasingly rare new cars which genuinely feel like an event to drive.

Yet I hate it because – in the words of Joe Jacobs, the boxing manager – we wuz robbed. Robbed of the car, I’ve long reckoned, should have been the F-type all along.

That’s right; 14 years ago the world was shown another F-type and – in much the same way as the original E-type did back in ’61 – collectively gawped at what was a truly mesmerising vision of a Jaguar sports car. Even though I was only 13-years-old at the time, I’d already decided what car I’d be getting once I was finally old enough to appear on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.

 In much the same way the E-type was sired by the Le Mans-winning D-type of the 1950s, I loved the way that the F-type presented at the 2000 Geneva Motor Show was directly inspired by an even wilder Jaguar show car – the wonderfully bonkers XK180 from two years earlier. The difference was that while 1998’s offering was always presented as being a bit too unhinged for wider public consumption, the F-type watered down the XK180’s excesses just enough that Jaguar said that maybe – just maybe – there would be a road-going version. It even went to the trouble of setting up a hotline simply so car nuts could pester them about putting it into production.

The F-type as Jaguar originally intended it would not only have been clearer in its objectives, taking on the Boxster directly rather than sitting above it at the expense of Jaguar’s own (and now killed off) XK model, but it was so much more beautiful than the current car. It’s a good thing I was too young at the time to ring that hotline, otherwise Jaguar’s management would have a restraining order against me.

Don’t get me wrong – getting a go in the new F-type is as a fabulous as being offered a date with Michelle Keegan. It’s just I was still secretly hoping for Keira Knightley’s number instead.

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The Lamborghini Gallardo has cost me dearly in the pub bragging stakes

“WHAT’S the most powerful car you’ve ever driven?”

There is, in the days when top speed is considered a bit un-PC, still a certain validity about asking what’s the highest amount of bhp you’ve ever handled from one engine. Well, at least there is if you’re two petrolheads and it comes down to pub bragging rights! If you’ve ever wondered what those strange three letters – bhp – stand for, then wonder no more.

The standard way we Brits measure power goes back way beyond the dawn of motoring itself, and hails from the days when James Watt needed to show the world how brilliant his steam engine was. One horsepower – which was always measured at the steam engine’s brake, hence the b in bhp – was equivalent to the work one pit pony could do. It’s a measure which migrated from steam to petrol and, as a result, has obsessed Top Gear presenters ever since.

Naturally, I’ve got my most powerful car to date clearly jotted down in my mental notebook – the Jaguar XKR-S Convertible, which I drove last year. Its 5.0 litre, supercharged V8 churns out no less than 542bhp. Which, in pony terms, means it's enough to keep a discount supermarket supplier in business for several months.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been enough to stop me getting outhorsepowered by my mate. He was treated to one of those ‘try a supercar for a day’ presents for his birthday and, as a result, got given a Lamborghini Gallardo to play with for a morning. I’ve been outgunned – by eight piffling brake horse power – and he hasn’t let me live it down since.

There are, of course, less childish ways to express a car’s oomph. If you want to be intelligent about it there’s the issue of power-to-weight ratio, which is why said mate is hard at work cramming no less than 170bhp into an old Rover Metro, which in theory, should give it the same sort of punch – if not cornering prowess – as a Porsche Boxster. Then there’s the mysterious world of torque, which would take the next three weeks of motoring columns to explain properly but is why so many not-that-powerful turbodiesel cars are so good at overtaking.

Raw power, however, has a certain mine’s-got-more-than-yours childish appeal which still appeals to petrolheads (and probably explains why I like TVRs so much). The best thing about horsepower, however, is that you don’t need to be a motoring journalist to outgun Yours Truly.

All you need to do is get given a certain birthday present, turn up at your nearest racing circuit, and have a blast!

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Car park at Donington proves an unlikely haven for classic spotters

ONE of the great things about going to a car show is that the automotive exotica isn't always limited to the exhibits inside the gates.

A lot of petrolheads enjoy taking their pride and joy to the event with them, which is why I've always reckoned it's worth having a nose around the car park before you head home to see if there's anything special hiding among the Astras and Qashqais.

In the case of this year's Donington Historic Festival the public car park proved to be particularly prolific, with the fantastically rare Porsche 911 Speedster you see above giving an idea of just some of the surprises in store.

Here's just a few of the automotive treats that were in store...

Traditionalist Morgan or exuberant Ferrari F355 - which would you pick for a blast through the countryside?

A sports car classic in Italian racing red takes centre stage in Donington's car park. Oh, and there's a Ferrari Dino too.

No prizes for guessing which one I'd pick...

Rover 214SEi owned by Yours Truly, Lotus Elise and Austin Healey Sprite pose for the camera.

How many car parks have you spotted an Alfa Romeo SZ in lately? Liking the Astra GTE alongside it too - a surprisingly rare sight on British roads these days!

Two very different Sixties classics - a Citroen DS21 and an MGB Roadster - add a touch of style to the car park.

Oh-so-Seventies shade of gold seems to suit this Series 3 Jaguar XJ6 perfectly.

Porsche 911 GT3 wins our approval. Questionable registration plate doesn't.

Ford Fiesta RS Turbo - when was the last time you saw one?

Check out Life On Cars later this week for some of the highlights from inside this year's Donington Historic Festival.

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Desire is brilliant, but what about the F-Type?

ANYONE remember that Peugeot 406 advert from absolutely ages ago?

You'll know the one I mean. A girl in the path of an oncoming lorry gets saved from certain death, M People's soultastic hit Search for the Hero gets belted out in the background, and there's lots of money shots of France's favourite repmobile to establish it's - to reuse Peugeot's wonderfully awful slogan - the drive of your life. Even though it hasn't been aired in an ad break since about 1996, it's up there with Bob Hoskins telling us it's good to talk and three frogs belching out the name of a light beer for sticking around in the old grey matter.

As for car adverts, there's only two others I can actually recall out of the thousands I must have seen over the years - the VW Golf ad responsible for getting my favourite song to number one in the charts (The Bluebells' Young At Heart, if you're intetested), and Vauxhall's efforts to make the 1997 Astra the star of a sort of automotive Apocalypse Now. That's it.

Jaguar, however, has now decided to take the art of car adverts to a whole new level; for the new F-Type a minute-and-a-bit of Britpop and a clever catchphrase wasn't enough. So they sent Ridley Scott, Damian Lewis and their new sports car to the Atacama Desert in Chile not to make an advert, but a movie instead.

 

Desire, the 13 minute short film they came up with, is surprisingy watchable even if you aren't a petrolhead - think Quantum of Solace crossed with trippy Seventies car chase hit Vanishing Point and you won't be too far off. Without wanting to ruin the plot, Damian Lewis plays a suave, Bond-esque delivery driver who has to deliver a new F-Type, but finds himself having to fight off would-be assasins and the searing desert heat.

The only problem is that, for all the Gladiator guru's best efforts, you're always aware at the back of your mind that Desire is an extended car advert, and that poor Damian always plays second to the car itself. There's one scene where he crams the cars Top Trumps specs into a conversation he's having with a gun-toting gangster - something I can't imagine 007 or Jason Bourne doing any time soon. I applaud Jaguar for pushing the boundaries with what's possible, but I can't help feel it might have been better off getting Ridley and Damian to do a sequel to Bladerunner instead.

Desire is, in its own right, a brilliant bit of automotive artwork, but it doesn't answer the biggest question everybody has about the F-Type. What's it like to drive?

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The Jaguar XK150 is a wonderful passport to 1950s Britain

DRESS up smartly and stick on some sepia-tinted shades, because this week's column comes from the 1950s. I'd tell you to stick your seatbelts on too, but I can't because Jaguar's XK150 doesn't have any.

This week's automotive adventure was supposed to be all about driving an E-Type for the first time, but it isn't because it was actually its older brother which left a far greater impression. The setting is the stunning scenery of the New Forest, where as part of an assignment for Classic Car Weekly we've unleashed three big cats - an E-Type, an XK150 Roadster and a Daimler Double Six, which are all going under the hammer at the Barons Jaguar Heritage Auction this weekend - for a feature.

It is, on the face of it, a windswept moor on a ruddy cold April afternoon, but as soon as I thumbed the XK's starter button, heard that wonderful straight six burst into life and set off I was no longer in a hugely expensive, left hand drive car that isn't mine.

I was in the late 1950s, driving one of the world's fastest and most beautiful sports cars through a bit of Britain unspoilt by speed cameras and people in Nissan Micras. A time when you could legally nail the XK's throttle and turn the countryside into a green blur as you darted along winding lanes between quaint villages full of smiling bobbies on bicycles. A time when people appreciated the XK's finely sculpted lines and the bark of its exhaust note. What the pictures from my first assignment of being a classic car scribe is just unbelievably cold the New Forest was, or that in the absence of Gatso cameras I had some 1950s-style hazards to contend with instead - whenever a cow or a pony decided to wander into the road I was glad it’s these particular Jags which popularized disc brakes!

But I didn’t care, because even with an E-Type and a V12-engined drawing room on wheels competing for my automotive affections it was the XK150 I fell just a little bit in love with. The view down the Jag's bonnet as its curves flowed out into the countryside ahead is something I'll never forget.

In reality it's 2013 of course, and we live in a very different Britain where the Golf BlueMotion we used as the camera car outdid the XK at just about everything. No prizes for guessing which one I'm saving up for, though.

Read the full feature about the Jaguars and more from David Simister in the latest edition of Classic Car Weekly. If you have a motoring story for him call 01733 468847.

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Is this the best looking saloon on sale today?

IN THE classic gangster film Get Carter, the villains drove a Jag MK2. In The Long Good Friday, the vehicle of choice was an XJ6.

This automotive star of this year's gangster film - The Sweeney - was a Jaguar XF. Having clocked one parked up in a Southport side street today, it's not hard to see why.

I've already driven the 2.2 diesel version of the Brit saloon and can tell you that from a driver's perspective it's excellent; one of the best new cars I've tried this year, in fact. But what I could see from the Stratus Grey example I saw, with its understated alloys and meshed grille, was that it looked the part too. In cinematic terms, it's exactly the sort of quietly menacing motor an assasin would drive.

Until this year I would've argued the best looking Jag is in fact the big XJ - there's something about the challenging styling, which stands out next to all the other luxobarges, that I love - but now I reckon the smaller XF's caught up with it. After being wowed by the stunning C-XF concept car of all those years ago, I know I wasn't the only one to be a bit dissapointed with the production version that followed - far too much in the way of gloopy headlights and not enough in the way of visual treats.

The facelifted version, though? That really is a treat for the eyes.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's the best looking saloon on sale today. Better than a Maserati Quattroporte or a Merc CLS? I'd reckon so...

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Jaguar builds a speedboat

EVER wondered what would happen if let Jaguar's style gurus loose on a speedboat rather than a car?

Well wonder no more because the shapely creation you see here, designed to help plug the launch of the not-exactly-ungainly XF Sportbrake, is what they've come up with. It's called the Concept Speedboat and is apparently inspired by the likes of Jaguar's original XJ6 of 1968.

Ian Callum, Jaguar's director of design and the man behind Jaguar's XF and XK, Nissan's R390 GT racer and the Aston DB7, said: “The Concept Speedboat looks powerful. It follows, in so many ways, the idea of a traditional speedboat but with the sleek and fast characteristics that you would expect from a Jaguar car.

“I hope our design inspires people to think about our products in a much broader sense, especially in lifestyle and enjoyment.  I have always had a passion to create such an object and it seemed fitting that we relate this to a lifestyle vehicle such as the Jaguar XF Sportbrake.  The two sit together perfectly.”

I, for one, think it looks fabulous. Jaguar, being a car company rather than a boat builder, has no plans to make a production version.

Maybe someone at Sunseeker should give them a ring?

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Owning a Jaguar XJR is a stupid idea, no matter how cheap the insurance

THE woman from Confused sounded a bit, well, confused. When would I be interested in taking up insurance on a supercharged V8 Jaguar?

It's very nearly November, which in the Life On Cars household means enduring the expensive ordeal of insuring both a £300 Rover and a Mazda MX-5 at roughly the same time. With each year of driving around and not claiming for the cost of a crumpled heap of metal in a hedge my insurance has got a little bit cheaper, but I'm still paying more the cost of a year's insurance for the ancient Rover than the cost of the car itself.
Slightly depressed by that realisation, I turned to that opium of car enthusiasts, eBay, and immediately came up with a far more suitable banger. All 3.2 litres of a Jaguar XJ8, and mine for £750. I very nearly headed for the Buy It Now button, but then I clocked the wheelarch rot and a service history with more gaps than a jeans shop. So I moved on to the next offering.

Big mistake - I'd found a tidy T-reg Jaguar XJR, which back in the day would have set golfers back a cool £51,000 but was here, in the great Arthur Daley forecourt of cyberspace, for £1,750. True, it had 124,000 miles on the clock but it looked to be in good nick, and the thought of having 370bhp at my leather-lined, wood-trimmed disposal seemed tempting enough to look past the prospect of getting less than 20 to the gallon. It is, Jag people will know, a fabulous car; refined and graceful enough to wear the Big Cat badge with pride, but blessed with a 4.0 litre V8, beefy alloy wheels and sports trim and suspension for added zestfulness. Petrolhead heaven, basically.

Drunk with delight, I idiotically went to an insurance comparision website to find out how much it'd cost a twentysomething male working in journalism - which in insurance terms is about as dangerous a profession as they come - to make sure it was beyond my aspirations of automotive avarice. It wasn't. Someone as hamfisted as me could insure Coventry's finest, fully comp, for a shade over a grand, which unlike the Rover is less than the car itself cost.

I woke up the following morning and knocked the idea on the head, having realised in the cold light of day that having a supercharged Jag outside the house would be a stupid, expensive idea.

The only problem is, the insurance companies keep ringing me up now and suggesting otherwise!

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article included a picture of the special edition XJR 100 rather than the standard XJR. This has since been amended.

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Is stretching an E-Type altering an icon?

A CLASSIC car specialist in Shropshire is about to do what some enthusiasts would call the unthinkable by stretching a Jaguar E-Type.

Classic Motor Cars Limited, based in Bridgnorth, said it is about to start work on a project which effectively involves making a 1968 4.2 litre Series 1 Roadster, but while it involves altering one of the best known sports car shapes of all time the company say they are keen to keep the preserve the E-Type's essence while making it roomier and easier to live with.

Nick Goldthorp, the company's managing director, said: "This is something that we have never been done before. Our client wanted the interior leg room of a Series 3 V12 E-Type but the aesthetics of a Series 1 car.

"We are going to add four and a half inches to the floor pan, which will give the leg room of the V12 plus an additional one inch if required. The V12 was actually nine inches longer than a Series I but a lot of the additional room was behind the seats as storage and is not required on our project. By adding four and a half inches to the length of the car we will be able to retain the overall look of the Series 1 and also turn this E-Type into a unique car."

The project involves not only stretching the left-hand-drive car by four and a half inches, but also fitting the Sixties sports car with modern technology, including air conditioning, power steering, upgraded brakes, a new five speed gearbox, better suspension and handling upgrades among other additions.

Paul Branstad, the American client who owns the car, said: "The stretched E-Type I have conceived sits between the Series 1 and the subsequent vehicles produced after the merger and formation of British Leyland, when the design of the cars underwent several transformations as a consequence of cuts in production costs and the need for more space that resulted in the Series II 2+2 and Series III V12."

While classic car purists would argue against altering aerodynamicist Malcolm Sayer's original vision for the E-Type's shape, the sketch included here, Life On Cars reckons, is sympathetic to the Jag's original styling, and could actually provide the tempting prospect of the earlier E-Types's looks with the creature comforts of the later V12 cars.

The stretched E-Type is expected to be completed in September next year.

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Burning rubber at the Jaguar Land Rover factory

IT’S NOT every day one of Britain's biggest car companies lends you an enormous factory car park to play with.

Yet that’s exactly what Jaguar Land Rover did when they lent Aintree Circuit Club the use of part of their Halewood factory – home of the Range Rover Evoque – for an AutoSolo event earlier today, as part of the club’s calendar of motorsport events.

AutoSolo is a great form of entry-level motorsport and a bit of a petrolhead thrill in its own right, because you can enter in pretty much anything in have and blast. The inaugural event at the Jaguar Land Rover factory attracted a pretty eclectic entry list, with everything from cheap ‘n’ cheerful Micras and Corsas, hot hatch classics like the Peugeot 205 GTI and the Golf GTI, and rear wheel drive roadsters like the Caterham Seven and the Mazda MX-5.

The event, held in the factory’s 50th anniversary year, saw an expansive car park converted into a twisty course, which more than thirty cars took a crack at trying to complete.

The competitors made the best of the changeable conditions and used the damp course to get some of the more colourful entries seriously sideways – for me, the highlight of the day was watching one driver drifting his diminutive Suzuki Whizzkid!

If you’d like to find out more about AutoSolo events in the near future, visit the Aintree Circuit Club website for details of forthcoming fixtures.

Aintree Circuit Club are also organising this year's Ormskirk MotorFest, which takes place on August 26. Keep an eye on Life On Cars over the coming weeks for special coverage of the event...

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Just how far do you go with your classic car?

THE MAN with the exploding E-Type knew how to make an entrance.

Not only had he turned up to Bretherton in a V12 convertible sports car, but thanks to a mechanical malady it came shrouded in a dramatic cloud of steam too. It was luckily, just a blown hose and nothing more major than that, but the spectacular arrival did at least highlight the stunning old Jag, which didn't look a day older than when it left the showroom. A big cat, obviously, which had been properly restored before being allowed to go on the prowl at last weekend's Bank Hall Classic Car Show.

It does, however, bring up the age-old question familiar to most fans of automotive antiques; just how far do you go and how much cash should you splash? Classics, you see, exist in three basic states; unloved wrecks which have weathered badly over a course of decades and are badly in need of a bit of TLC, everyday smokers which have a bit of wear ‘n' tear because they get used regularly by their owners, and the immaculate, big money restorations. The concours winners, basically.

My old MG would never win at concours, which is sort of like an automotive Crufts anyway. You do occasionally get the odd snob pointing out the bits of paintwork where a spot of rust is starting to show through, but that's missing the point. If you want to buy a car that looks pretty and does nothing else then get an Audi TT; I'd much rather be out on the country lanes in my old car, en-route to somewhere nice, using it as its creators intended.

I could lavish thousands on the old girl to bring her up to showroom standard but then it'd be no more useful to me than the watch my late granddad left me. It's a beautiful bit of chronography and one of my most prized possessions, but I'd never actually take it out anywhere because I'd never forgive myself if it got scratched.

I thoroughly admire the work, the love and the care that goes into bringing a 40-year-old car into as-new nick, but I just know I'd turn my own motor into a granddad's watch if I went down the same route. It'd look a million dollars, but it'd no longer be a car I could trust leaving in a supermarket car park, a place where scratches are but a misplaced parallel park away from the pristine bodywork.

Besides; why spend thousands on a classic car when you spend a fraction of that on making a memorable entrance? Man with the exploding E-Type, you've laid down the gauntlet...

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Jaguar Land Rover factory to host exciting Autosolo event

ENTHUSIASTS are being given the chance to get behind the wheel at Jaguar Land Rover's home in the north west at an event next weekend.

The new facility at the firm's factory in Halewood will play host to an Autosolo event next Saturday (August 4) - and there's still time for petrolheads to enter into the event and put their own cars through their paces.
Aintree Circuit Club, which is organising the event, said: "We are indebted to the management of the factory for allowing us the use of one of the car parks. Jaguar Land Rover are celebrating their 50th anniversary of the plant this year so we hope to see a good turnout to thank them.

"The event will follow a similar format to other AutoSOLOs, with open flowing tests on various surfaces, a handbrake will not be essential to get round the course. If you haven’t seen an AutoSOLO before then rest assured that this is not a memory contest. Although there is no passenger the tests are laid out with numbers and markers to help you find the way round.

"We are running a dual permit event, the National B event being a round of the ANWCC Autosolo Championship. The BTRDA have invited us to be a round in their Autosolo Championship as well as in the Newcomer’s Autosolo Challenge, which is open to Juniors under 25 and those who have not held a MSA competition license in the past ten years. Running in parallel will be a PCA counting towards the ANWCC Junior PCA Championship.

"Remember that the event is only open to road legal cars driven to the event. The Clubman entrants don’t need a competition licence but make sure that your club membership is up to date. You can always join Aintree Circuit Club on the day if you wish to compete. National B competitors must have a 2012 competition licence. We are hoping for a good entry so please get your entry in as soon as possible."

There's still time to enter - the deadline is 8.30am on Saturday, August 4 - with entry costing £23 or £25 depending on the exact event entered. For more information call 0151 525 5060/07821 230961 or send an email at mja@aintree.org.uk

Aintree Circuit Club is also looking for volunteers to act as marshals to help make the event a success. If you'd like to get involved, send an email to nickstafford@mail.com.

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Summer is here...

....after what feels like an eternity of showers, grey skies and drizzle. Naturally, with this being Britain the best way to measure this meteorological high is from the number of convertibles out on our roads at the moment.

Regular readers will probably already know I like to fly the ragtop flag whenever the sun comes down, regardless of the time of year, but the combination of proper sunshine, warm weather and the uniquely British need to 'get the old girl' out of the garage means more and more of my fellow motorists, I've noticed, are getting the roof down.

Obviously there's the inevitable stream of BMW-era MINIs, new Beetles, Vauxhall Tigras and - dare I say it - Mazda MX-5s now on the roads in al fresco mode, but far more refreshing are the rarer beasts which have emerged from automotive hibernation in the past week or two. Stuff like MGBs, Lotus Elans, Merc SLs of the slimline Sixties vintage, Triumph Spitifires, TVR Griffiths and Chimaeras, and, if you're among the more minted petrolhead variety, Aston DB7 Volantes.

But I just had to share a picture of what I reckon is probably the coolest convertible effort I've seen so far lately - an E-Type V12 roadster parked up roof down, on a busy Saturday morning on Lord Street, Southport's busiest thoroughfare. While I usually prefer my E-Types to come in the sleeker, straight six powered variety, it would take someone with a heart of stone to say this car doesn't cut the mustard. It's just got a certain rightness about it.

Then again, you don't have to be an automotive twitcher to take in all these gorgeous old convertibles - a lot of them will be at the Woodvale Rally next weekend. Can't wait!

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Fire up the... Jaguar XF 2.2D

FIGURES. There were all sorts of fantastic ones involved with the Jaguar XKR-S I drove recently but with this rather more realistic big cat just one matters - 133.9. The going price, in pennies, for petrol at the moment.

That's why any executive car maker worth their salt has got to have a decent diesel at its disposal, because while the slippery stuff costs a little bit more you get an awful lot more for your gallon. Look through the sales figures of any swish saloon and it's no longer the silky straight sixes and the thumping V8s that are the big sellers. It's the ones you fill up with the black pump.

Jaguar's been lucky to have a superb diesel - the 2.7 litre, Citroen-derived V6 - to call on in recent years but it's this smaller, 2.2 litre unit that really matters for the XF. Finally, more than four years after the saloon's introduction, it's got an engine that can actually hit the 5-Series, the A6 and the E-Classs where it hurts. The 2.2 XF diesel could and should be the firm's biggest seller.

The improvements aren't just limited to the engine room, either; you might have noticed the XF got a facelift last year, meaning the slightly-clumsy headlights are gone in place of some much sharper, XJ-style ones. I can think of few cars whose looks actually improve after the now compulsory midlife makeover, but the XF's one of them.

Anyone venturing inside won't find the church pew dashboards and acres of cream leather you got in this car's ancestors but what you get instead is Jaguarness with added modernity. The way the rotating gear selector for the slick eight-speed auto rises out of the centre console, for instance, is very Gadget Show, but the use of wood, leather and tech make the cabin infinitely more interesting than the wall-to-wall black leather you'll get in BMW's 5-Series.

 So would you buy one over the Beemer? Both cost £30,000, both will prove cosseting and comfy companions and both come with all the toys any thrusting middle-management type demands, but it depends on what you're looking for. The BMW, by a whisker, is the more refined of the two and will go ever so slightly further on a gallon, but the Jag's better looking, more characterful and more fun when it strays off its natural habitat of the motorway's outside lane.

I'd take the Jag.

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Fire up the... Jaguar XKR-S Convertible

BILL Lyons would have liked this car. Jaguar's late, great founder would, I reckon, have got out of the XKR-S, taken in its lines and given it the thumbs up.

Why? Because Jaguar's sports cars, right from the original XK120, through the Le Mans winning C and D Types and through to the iconic E-Type were all about being as fast and beautiful as anything Aston or Ferrari could knock out, and for a fraction of the price. This roadgoing missile and the old E have a mission statement in common.

The XKR-S, to get it out of the way, is almost unspeakably fast. Thanks to a supercharged five litre V8 and a uprated exhaust system at its disposal it has no less than 542bhp at its disposal, meaning that in terms of big cats only the old XJ220 supercar can outsprint it. More importantly, it offers more grunt than the Ferrari California and the Aston Martin DBS for a lower price. Which is a very Jag thing to do.

It also pulls off that other crucial Jaguar accomplishment - it looks good, although I'd argue not quite as svelte as the cheaper and less powerful XKR the S is based on. The XKR-S, in its bid to look bolder and more aggressive, loses a little of the elegance of its slower siblings. Different strokes and all that, though.

In fact, the biggest bugbear about the absolute gem of an engine that Jaguar's created for the hottest XK ever is a surprisingly simple one; that the company, quite simply, has fitted it to the wrong car.

The XKR-S is a wonderful showcase for what the company, finally freed from the limits of ex-owner Ford's finances and the needs to play second fiddle to Aston Martin, can do, but with two doors, tiny back seats and a £103,000 pricetag it's left looking a little indulgent. Especially next to the likes of the BMW M5, a car that'll offer even more grunt and a similar prestige in a more practical package. This engine belongs under the bonnet of the XJ saloon, and when and if the company get around to it (please, pretty please) they'll create a performance car package to die for. Until then, however, the XK will do just fine.

Don't worry, however, if you reckon a 542bhp Jaguar costing upwards of £100,000 is bordering on irrelevant in today's recession-ridden times, because the company does the real world just as well as the surreal one. Tune in next time to find out why...

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