2007 Jaguar C-XF Concept Review

Specifications

Trouble. As much as I regret saying it, this word effectively sums upthe state that Jaguar is currently in. It’s difficult to say why this is happening though, as head management helped pull an amazing turn-around. For a brand so cash-strapped, the cars that it produces are astonishing. They have the latest technology, allowing them to handle, ride and drive as well as any of their peers. They’re built better than ever before and are winning awards for it. They’re even amongst the most reliable in their segment. But this has not helped Jaguar’s case one bit. Year after year, the brand fails to return positive profits and even with the newest range it’s had in years its sales are sinking at a rate akin to the Titanic. From dire times comes drastic change, which is the purpose of the brand’s big debut at this year’s Detroit auto show. They’re showing Jaguar’s new direction with the concept version of the XF midsize premium car that will be replacing the S-Type. What’s the verdict? It’s not going to be to everyone’s liking.

This is not Jaguar as we know it. It doesn’t have a big,chrome grille flanked by four round headlamps and crowned by a leaping animal. It does not have a flat roof with a long, shallow trunk. Instead, the C-XF has the kind of curves that are more fit for the XK sports car than a midsize sedan. From the front, it’s probably the most aggressive Jaguar I’ve ever laid eyes on, with narrow headlamps, a hood that’s bulging in multiple places and a big, horse-collar grille. The deep front valance looks more fit for the race track than for a Sunday drive, but with looks like this you know that the C-XF is going to be a driver’s car. Clearly the old school of design has been crumpled and thrown out the window. No three-box this or low belt-line that. From some angles, many would be hard pressed to call it a Jaguar at all, but the changes are here, and they’re necessary in the eyes of Jaguar’s design chief, Ian Callum.

Looking back at the history books will show that radical carslike the C-XF were everyday life for Jaguar. The original MK series sedan (which inspired the S-Type) was groundbreaking. And the E-Type? So revolutionary and so beautiful that it dictated what elegant grand touring sports cars would be for the next twenty or thirty years. There were plenty of daring moves during Jaguar’s days of ownership by British Leyland too. The ’70s era XJS was supposed to be mid-engined before the engineers changed their minds at the last second. That’s why it had those massive flying buttresses. And then the forward movement of design ground to a halt during the ’90s and into the new millennium. The C-XF attempts to continue on that original lineage, suggesting what a 2009/2010 Jaguar might have looked like had Jaguar’s late designer Geoff Lawson not paused time.

The extent of giving Jaguar cars a new image goes straight to the root of the brand. The C-XF sports a revamped version of the Jaguar leper logo, now distilled down to its bare essentials. The detail has been stripped away leaving but two sweeping lines that form the back, and legs of the cat. Bold, yet beautiful. Jaguar says that the C-XF won’t be hitting the road in the form you see here; it’ll be a regular sedan instead of a four-door coupe as this demonstrator suggests.

Yes, the C-XF is a tantalizing piece of automotive design that’sgood enough to get car enthusiasts salivating, but what’ll really make you drool is finding out what’s under the hood. Even though Jaguar doesn’t have the finances to develop a brand new performance engine that revs to 10,000 rpm or has a pair of variable geometry turbochargers, its 4.2-liter supercharged V8, as found in all of its high performance “R” vehicles, is still a great engine. It makes 420 horsepower as per its latest incarnation in the new XKR, and has 368 lb-ft of torque driving the 21-inch rear wheels. Because all big Jaguars are shifted via an automatic, the C-XF gets a six-speed ZF gearbox with paddles mounted behind the steering wheel. Jag says that the C-XF could theoretically top 185 mph, given a long enough road.

Just like the exterior, you’d have a difficult timeplacing the interior of the C-XF as a Jaguar. It has all the traditional elements that are found in every production model - wood, leather, metal - but not in the usual manner. There are great big slabs of ash wood that top the aluminum center console, but they’ve been scorched for a unique satin finish and color. Likewise, instead of the expected burled wood veneer dash there’s lots of brushed aluminum metal, a material beautiful in its own right. What isn’t metal or thin-film transistors is leather. The C-XF’s dashboard and seats are wrapped in carbon-fiber patterned semi-aniline leather. Wrapped was a word deliberately chosen as neither the seats nor dash have visible stitching. Unlike any current Jaguar, the C-XF has ambient lighting that beams not just from the doors, but from under the dash and console as well. And for the first time, speakers aren’t just speakers, they’re works of art. The C-XF has aluminum cabinets that look similar to the Bang & Olufsen units found in the Audi A8 and S8. As they say, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

But the interior detailing doesn’t end there. The C-XF is packed withthe kind of gimmicks that show the design team’s imagination and creativity muscles are still in tip-top shape. The aircraft-style instruments are neat, but they’re adaptive to how the car is being driven. When the driver engages Dynamic sports mode, the tachometer physically moves towards the driver putting it in a more prominent display. Less silly is the engine-start button, whose pulsating glow represents a beating heart. Although some may view it as Jaguar ripping off its brother Aston Martin, its purpose isn’t merely to breathe life into the car. Once the starter button has been pushed, the aluminum rings that surround the circular gear selector drop down, allowing the driver to operate the transmission. If that doesn’t grab your attention, there’s no hope for you.

And yet, there’s still more. As a road tester who drives hundreds of cars a year, one complaint I often hear is how front seat passengers feel neglected when it comes to on-board entertainment. Those who ride in back get their own LCD displays and headphones, while the front passenger has to look at the boring navigation screen (or just the dashboard). Jaguar’s solved this problem by giving the C-XF a unique display that allows the driver and passenger to view different things simultaneously. One question Jag answered that people hadn’t asked was to find a way of making door handles more complicated. Using a system called JaguarSense, the car uses motion sensors that detect hand movements and then pop the door handles out. Luckily Jaguar’s quality ratings per JD Power are at the top of the list, as this technology would have been downright frightening in the days when Jaguar hadn’t yet sorted out its electrical foibles.

In the past five years, Jaguar’s concept cars have been slowly evolving, which is the exact same thing that can be said about their production cars. The new XJ looks just like the old XJ. The new XK is a bit different, but sill has many of the old XK’s undertones. For all of Jaguar’s efforts on giving the RD6 concept a side-hinged tailgate and a hatchback body, its quad circular lights and tiny oval grille were a sign that Jaguar was clinging too tightly to its past. In truth, the past is the past and Jaguar desperately needs to quickly move on. By letting go and giving future cats a new look, Jaguar might have just found the key to its own survival.