Jaguar can't have enjoyed watching all those aspiring middle-management types jumping eagerly behind the wheel of BMW's entry-level diesel 5 series for so many years. Or perhaps they just hadn't noticed. Either way, the firm's engineers and product planners have conspired to fill a glaring gap in the line-up.
So the firm recently chose to launch its new 2.2 diesel XF in Munich, closer to BMW's head office than might be considered seemly, but a move that generated some of the right sort of headlines over here. However, this being PH, (the home of responsible reporting - keep up!), we'll pass on the sort of jingoistic Jerry-bashing you might have seen elsewhere.
(Mmmmfff! Somebody get this duct tape off my face... Ed.)
We travelled in the new diesel from Munich to the pictureskew resort of Tegernsee in the foothills of the Alps near Austria, which is a bit like the Lake District without the 'chav' element and - when we were there - the traffic. It's also close to the historic Wallbergstrasse hillclimb route, which gets a mention in BMW's Pure Drives 'route book' here, but sadly we didn't get a chance to have a crack at it. Instead we decamped to the Uber Fahrt hotel (top comedy value, right there!), and were briefly re-introduced to the XF facelift's finer points by Jaguar chief designer Ian Callum and JLR brand director Adrian Hallmark - but we've covered those details already. We were also fed with delicious local meat products until we nearly fainted. There could be colon trouble ahead.
But we digress - what's the £30,950 2.2 like on the road? Well, an XFR it 'aint, but then customers in this entry-executive sector aren't necessarily used to dangerous, drug-fuelled sex on wheels, so that's possibly a good thing. That said, the newbie doesn't lack for much, apart from raw power, a tail-pipe, and a slight deficiency in the taxable benefit stakes against its German rivals - its 149g/km CO2 output means it will cost the shiny-bummed office-suited set an extra £41pcm to run compared to, say, the BMW 520d. (Yikes, we just quoted
What Car at you...), and it's not quite as economical - 52.3mpg plays 57.6mpg.
While at Tegernsee, Adrian proudly proclaimed the news that an XF 2.2 had just made it from Coventry to Munich airport - 800 odd miles - on a single tankful of diesel. Did anyone else know motor cars could achieve such feats these days? (And if so, why hasn't the public been informed..?) For our part, we politely refrained from pointing out that launching an XF-shaped mobile chicane onto the slow lane of the autobahn isn't necessarily the best advert for Jaguar in Germany, and determined to help redress the balance by attempting to max-out a 2012 XFR on the way back to the airport. On some very pretty 'B' roads.
Silliness aside, there a lot to like about this new 2.2 four cylinder version. It makes a sector-competitive 188bhp and 332lb ft, but most importantly retains the lithe, loping chassis of its bigger-hearted brethren, which means - once up to speed - you can cover twisty and challenging roads with a genuinely Jaguar-esque panache. Having lost a few pounds of nose weight, the turn-in might be that little bit crisper, too, but you'd have to be pretty switched-on to notice - and in fact we were mostly impressed by the luxurious cruising feel of the new machine. Yes, if you really want to strop it, the engine noise is hardly 'musical' under maximum acceleration, but accelerate at a more sympathetic pace and the cabin environment is nice and refined - you'd happily drive it all day long, if your bladder could stand it. Jag boffins claim there's no noise disadvantage compared to the bigger engines at motorway speeds, and our two or three hours behind the wheel bore testament to the possibility of easy high-speed passage-making.
The car is also notable for its super-smooth eight-speed automatic gearbox, for which 'seamless' is an apt description, and a technically advanced (they tell us) stop-start mechanism which, frankly, we were glad to be able to disable. Does anyone really need that extra couple of mpg in a car as frugal as this?
Anyway, let's face it, a 2.2 diesel is never going to be a truly PH machine (we'd be surprised if it even makes SOTW in 2025), but the new Jaguar deserves its day on our homepage for no other reason than its success is important to the company's future, and we'd like to see it do well.
Which it should, because the general consensus suggests that in the context of its competition it's really very good. "Boff! Take that, Jerry." (Sorry...)
