Day
Two of the press launch programme and the faces on the Jaguar people were glum.
It may well have been the dying days of April and there may well have not been
so much as a flake of the stuff back in January or February but now there was four
inches of snow around the Dijon chateau and it looked like the morning’s X-type
drive programme was off.
If I’d been a Jaguar PR, writes just-auto.com deputy editor Graeme Roberts,
I’d have claimed to have ordered the snow in specially – all the better to assess
four-wheel drive, the key feature of the much awaited ‘baby Jag’.
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The previous day, on a full range of superb French roads – motorway, main arterial,
city streets and country lanes – in weather ranging from brilliant sunshine
to light snow, the new car had excelled with its secure ‘corners on rails’ feel
and a supple ride.
Now, on a hastily improvised local drive route, the extra grip of an extra
pair of wheels gave added security on slushy, icy roads and the car had to be
provoked into sliding while composure was easily regained.
While it doesn’t handle manhole covers, drainage grates and hidden potholes
with quite the silent aplomb of its bigger brothers, the X-type does handle
well. The more familiar you get with it, the faster you can plunge it into a
corner and it just goes around, keeping to the chosen line. Unsettling it takes
some doing and even switching of the electronic ‘nanny’ traction control won’t
always work because if you try something silly with the brakes it just switches
back in all by itself.
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The
X-type handles well – it takes a lot to unsettle |
Road-going gripes? The standard power steering is a little light and lifeless
but that can be avoided by choosing a Sport version with different valving and
firmer spring and damper settings. If you can live with the lighter steering,
you can also order the chromed SE models with the stiffer suspension. Jaguar
boffins say they’ll monitor early-customer feedback and can soon re-valve the
standard power steering set-up if buyers demand a bit more feedback.
So why four-wheel drive in the first place? True, in some markets you can order
the rival rear-drive BMW 3-series (the new Jag’s number one target) with four-wheel
drive and the front-drive Audi A4 also offers the option. Other likely competitors
in the hard-fought ‘junior executive’ class – including the Mercedes-Benz C-class,
Alfa Romeo 156, Volvo S60 and Rover 75 – offer either rear-wheel drive (the
purist’s choice) or drive through the front pair.
The reason Jaguar went all-wheel drive came down to economics. It’s a big enough
investment for a car company to go from three lines and 50,000 units a year
to five lines and 200,000 annually (the fifth model is a new roadster due out
in 2003) without developing an all-new platform. And the former Ford Escort
factory on England’s Merseyside needed to be rebuilt and its staff retrained
to Jaguar quality standards.
So, just as the S-type shares its platform and other bits with the Lincoln
LS, the X-type also borrows from owner Ford’s portfolio – in this case the new
European Mondeo, a front-drive car.
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The
X-type shares its platform with the new European Ford Mondeo |
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Jaguar wanted rear-wheel drive, the better to challenge the mighty BMW 3-series,
but re-engineering the platform to turn the engine round was too expensive.
Two-wheel drive? Over the chassis engineers’ dead bodies. Four-wheel drive,
then, with a relatively cheap-to-engineer viscous coupled centre differential
and a nominal 40-60 front/rear division of torque.
The system divvies up the power according to a road conditions so it’s possible
to floor the throttle and, momentarily, have a rear-wheel drive car. On the
other hand, though the front wheels do often help out, you feel not a hint of
scrabble through the steering.
While most of the rivals offer a choice of four and six cylinder engines, and
petrol or diesel power, Jaguar is sticking, for the moment, with just two petrol
V6s in either 2.5- or three-litre forms. We’ve seen the three-litre before,
in the larger S-type, and the smaller X-type motor is actually the same thing
with smaller cylinder bores, rather than a re-tuned Mondeo engine.
Despite a relatively flat torque curve, on paper, the smaller engine feels
a bit flat in the mid-range and responds best to a healthy dose of right foot
but its lovely crisp snarl under acceleration sounds better than the bigger,
and pokier, three-litre.
While American, Japanese and Australian buyers will mostly choose the silky-smooth
and responsive five-speed automatic gearbox, this car would be dead in the water
in Europe without the alternative five-speed manual option. The auto would benefit
from a Tiptronic-style nudge-up-or-down manual mode rather than Jaguar’s own
outdated J-gate system and the rather heavy manual requires careful matching
of engine and driveline speeds for jerk-free shifts.
As to future variants, it was largely clam-up time on the part of the assembled
Jaguar executives. A diesel and a sporting ‘R’ version (to challenge BMW’s M3)
are admitted to but there’s no word on whose diesel will meet demanding Jaguar
refinement standards and have the performance to knock BMW’s 330d off its perch.
On past performance, it won’t be a Ford unit but an upcoming V6 jointly developed
with France’s PSA shows promise.
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Inside
there is only one hint that Ford and the X-type are linked – a shared seat adjustment switch |
As to a four-cylinder (Mondeo-derived) engine, that’s not on the agenda at
all. There may be a two-litre V6 with just front-wheel drive but only if the
market demands such an entry-level model.
Although the X-type shares the Mondeo’s front suspension, albeit with its own
top bearings, springs and dampers and the rear suspension is adapted from the
Mondeo estate, there’s only one visible hint inside or out that Ford played
any part in the X-type’s gestation: a single shared seat adjustment switch.
Know your components and tear an X-type apart, of course, and you’ll find shared
door hardware, electric window and sunroof motors, air conditioner and so on,
but, in terms of the bits the customer sees and touches, this is a Jag, not
a flossied-up Ford.
In styling terms, most seem to think that the company has done a fair job combining
tradition and cutting-edge contemporary. Plenty of chrome on the base and SE
versions blends with curvy panels and four headlights to link the X-type with
its bigger brothers. On Sport models, everything is colour-keyed. But the wedgy
shape and forward-lunging nose give the X-type a style of its own though it’s
instantly recognisable from all angles as a Jaguar.
If there’s any area of disappointment, it has to be the interior. Sure, it
has all the right basic ingredients – the long front footwells for that dash-in-your-face
sportscar cockpit feel up front, leather, wood and gadgets aplenty.
But the execution leaves a bit to be desired. The finish on the leather and
‘wood’ just isn’t up to the standard of the V8 XJs and some of the plastics
are closer to cheap-Ford standards than you might expect. Especially the ‘curry
hook’ cleverly integrated into the glovebox release handle.
Switchgear and vents lack the quality look and feel of Volkswagen cabin components
and items like the glovebox lid and grab handles don’t have damped hinges. Standard
equipment is a little lacking, too, it seems a bit odd to have to pay extra
(here in Britain) for items like seat lumbar adjustment, a folding rear seat,
automatic wipers, a self-dimming rear view mirror and rear cup holders when
they’re standard in lesser sedans. Overseas distributors have each chosen specification
packages suited to their markets so ‘standard-spec’ will vary around the globe.
Nonetheless, what is in there all works a treat and our only complaint was
a digital climate control read-out too small and dimly lit to see on the move.
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The
interior is a disappointment |
An optional seven-inch touch-sensitive colour screen cleverly integrates the
(again optional) automatic climate control, DVD-based navigation system, telephone
and colour TV and proved surprisingly easy and intuitive to use, much simpler
than Mercedes systems, for example.
Rear seat legroom is a bit tight behind taller drivers and the seat is not
particularly comfortable with a shortish cushion and a backrest that is too
upright. On the other hand, this is, at last, a Jaguar with a decent boot (trunk).
That, Jaguar says, is because this car is more likely than its other models
to be a household’s only car.
Just over a decade ago, Toyota stunned the automotive world by attacking the
luxury car segment with the Lexus LS400. It wasn’t perfect but it was a superb
first effort, and it got better generation by generation.
The X-type is Jaguar’s first attempt at the hotly-contested, junior executive
sector and similar comments apply. It ain’t quite perfect yet, but it’s arguably
the best to drive and it sure is desirable.
The market would appear to confirm that, too. Sales begin in the UK on May
23, in Europe on May 30, the US on July 30 and in Japan, the Middle East and
Far East in September. In the UK alone, Jaguar is sitting on 4,000 advance orders
for a car few of those buyers have yet driven.
Mission accomplished, we think.
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