This Week I Have Been Mostly Driving...

2012 JAGUAR XF 2.2 DIESEL

With the introduction of the XF 2.2 Diesel Jaguar might want to appear to be listening to the environmental lobby and certainly they make a big deal of the 5.5l/100km consumption, as indeed they should for this class of car, but the reality is that the move is more in response to the money men at Tata who, of course, now hold the purse strings at Jaguar.

Currently with no model in the sub-R500k bracket, Jaguar is losing sales to direct competitors Audi and BMW. To compete, they have to abandon one of their core attributes and stoop ever lower in the performance stakes to keep up with the Joneses. Or the Schmidts, in this case.  

So does it work? Well, yes and no. Whilst acknowledging the reasoning behind why the XF2.2 exists I can’t help feeling that Jaguar are building down to a market rather than up to a standard that has traditionally been high.

Having gone to great lengths in recent years to shed the ‘old man’s car’ image they have now gone out of their way to build another. The performance will not frighten anyone over the age of 60 and the running costs will appeal to their sense of thrift.

Despite the 140kw and 450nm the XF2.2 feels sluggish off the line. What is of more concern is the lack of in-gear overtaking punch which is surprising for a turbo diesel. It is possibly this lack of oomph that will backfire for Jaguar. Hoping to attract a younger, less wealthy buyer will not alter the fact that that buyer goes for Jaguar for the performance image as much as the physical appearance.

The absolute refinement of engine, drivetrain and chassis might contribute to the disappointment in the performance. If there is one area where Jaguar has consistently excelled and continues to do so, it is in isolating the occupants from engine noise and general vibration. There is simply no indication from inside the car that you are in a diesel or that you might be travelling rapidly, no matter how long it took you to get there.

100km/h comes up in 8.5 seconds, but the manner it achieves this is so devoid of any fuss or drama, or noise for that matter, that it is easy to underestimate your road speed. Get your heart racing it will not, however, and, if you use the 8-speed auto ‘box to the redline in every gear in order to wring some performance out of it, you won’t see the consumption figures Jaguar claim. Still, less than 10l/100km over 300 hard-driven kilometres is nothing to be sniffed at.

Whatever the drop-off in performance from the 2.2 diesel, what is not diminished is the cachet of owning a Jaguar and the fact that you have the best looking sedan on the road, which subtle styling manipulations have further enhanced for the 2012 model year. In short these equate to new styling forward of the A-pillar, with new, sleeker headlights which give the car a meaner look, not entirely dissimilar to the A4 Audi. But driving a Jaguar on the road gives you a feeling that no A4, or its direct rival, the A6, could ever give. It might not be perfect in this engine guise but at the end of every journey you can still step out of it and look back and wonder at its beauty.

Jaguar need to attack different markets in order to ensure survival. However, it will take a mind-shift in the eyes of potential customers to accept the new frugal face of Jaguar. And the change in perception will not limit itself solely to economy. In the pipeline are new vehicles targeting new (for Jaguar) market sectors. First off, there is a convertible sports car to compete with the Mercedes SLK and BMW Z4, followed by a medium-sized sedan to go head-to-head with the BMW 3-Series and A4 Audi. Both will be brave gambles, taking on as they will be the established market leaders, but if anyone can do it, Jaguar can.

That's the gear you're in, not the track that's playing
on the CD!