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This car is Jaguar’s future

Jaguar’s XF model must sell the firm, as well as itself, says neil lyndon
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Jaguar is currently mounting a publicity onslaught to prepare for the launch, later this year, of the new XF exec saloon. But the lavish brochures, web pages, receptions and press events which have already been organised (before anybody outside the company has actually driven the XF) seem to be more than a preliminary sales pitch for a mere car. They also amount to a sales prospectus for the whole company.

Since Ford announced it was open to offers for Jaguar and Land Rover, it is imperative that prospective purchasers both of the company and of the car
 

should be impressed by the XF.

They need to be convinced that the XF marks a decisive, irreversible break from Jaguar's ruinous policies of the last 10 years and that, in future, the company will produce no more new cars that look as if they might be 35 years old.

The signs are not entirely encouraging. The XF will unquestionably be the most contemporary mainstream car that Jaguar has produced for 40 years but its profile looks, uneasily, like a take-off of a


 

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