Jaguar World Magazine Ultimate Buying Guide May 2011 Retour à l'édition précédente

Following the unveiling in Geneva
at the beginning of March of what will be
Jaguar’s most expensive production model
since the XJ220 – the £97,000 XKR-S – at the
end of the month came more details of what
is likely to be the most affordable Jaguar in the
marque’s 2012 Model Year line-up: the 2.2-litre
diesel XF.
Rumours about the arrival of this engine in
a Jaguar have been doing the rounds for some
time now but, following global brand director
Adrian Hallmark’s confi rmation in Geneva
that it was on the way, more facts have been
made available ahead of update details on the
entire XF range. You can read the full story on
page six, but the nub of the matter is that the
four-cylinder turbo diesel engine that will be
available to order in the XF from late April will
provide go enough for it to reach 60mph in
eight seconds and push on to a top speed of
140mph, but with a combined fuel economy
fi gure of 52.3mpg. True, those performance
fi gures may not make for as sexy reading as
the XKR-S’s stats, but the frugality of the new
model will prove attractive to a great many
buyers in what are increasingly expensive
times for the motorist. In fact, Jaguar predicts
that the 2.2-litre model will make up 60 per
cent of all XF sales.
Given that in the UK 12,687 XFs were
sold in 2010, and even considering that some
potential future buyers who may well have
plumped for a 3.0-litre diesel could now go for
the smaller engined model, it’s likely the 2.2 XF
will attract a whole new group of
economy conscious customers to Jaguar
and away from rivals’ models such as
BMW’s 520d. Winning them over can only
be a good thing.
It’ll be interesting too, of course, to see
what aesthetic changes are coming for the XF.
As you’ll have no doubt already realised, the
unusual colour scheme worn by the example
in our photographs is not a new Yin-Yang
inspired paint option, but camouflage covering
front and rear end modifications.