Lots of luxury and no end of class
You know those aerial chase-car shots you see on X-Factor of the judges razzing along the motorway on their way to auditions? Thats the back end of the Jaguar XJ youre looking at, a car thats designed to be driven, and be driven in, by celebs and wealthy businessmen. Its the latest version of the classic gentlemans Jag a high-tech luxury car majoring on comfort and peerless elegance.
Even the cheapest XJ is lavishly equipped, with leather, xenons, climate, sat-nav and premium in-car entertainment as standard. So too is a touch-screen display and virtual instrument panel, as well as 19 alloys, a full-length panoramic roof and a media hub for audio and video streaming. Theres only so much you can add to a list like that, but as you go up the range the luxuries get ever more luxurious, adding things like premium paint, softer leather, bigger alloys and seats that give you a massage.
Starting with the Supersport, this packs a supercharged 5.0-litre V8 engine that gives it the sort of performance you associate with Ferraris. The rest of the range gets a choice of 3.0 V6 engines, one petrol and one diesel. The latter is fast enough for any sane owner and leaves the others standing for fuel economy. Thats if you dont mind driving seventy grands worth of Jag that shares an engine with the Land Rover Discovery and Citroen C6, of course.
You have a right to expect perfection at this price, and thats certainly the level Jag was aiming at with the XJs interior. The dash is trimmed in top-notch materials and the seats in our Portfolio model, which is the highest of the everyday specs, felt soft, classy and comfortable from the word go. Oddment stowage is poor, however, and though the legroom in LWB models is immense, we were surprised to find our heads pressing into the roof when sitting in the back. Behind here, the boot lid opens and shuts automatically, though the luggage space it reveals is quite small and awkwardly shaped.
Our test car was powered by the 3.0 diesel engine, and its as smooth and commanding as youd expect. Its gloriously quiet at motorway speeds, too, though any sort of uneven surface on the open road is likely to set up a bit of body roll. Its never harsh, but you feel the suspension working in town and jogging you around on poorer B-roads, where theres only so much it can do to disguise the cars weight. Even on the smoothest roads, the body lolls a little in corners, and a slightly anaesthetised level of steering feel makes it less than instinctive to place when turning in.
No XJ will be cheap to run, but the diesels will give you 47mpg and bring CO2 emissions down to a sensible level. Thatll spare you the worst of the taxmans wrath, but premium cars like this are prone to losing huge amounts of value in the first few years of their lives. Again, a diesel-engined model will fare better here, but a V6 petrol, and especially a Supersport, will cost a fortune in depreciation.
