It is unofficially known as the Jaguar XS and the British BMW 3 Series competitor will take up the fight where the Jaguar X-Type left off last decade (it was discontinued in 2009). Let’s just hope the XS has a little more engineering depth to it than the X-Type, which nobody bought and was nothing more than a rebadged Ford Focus.
The all-new mid-sized Jaguar has been spotted in its testing phase and, at this stage, it looks very much like a modestly shrunken Jaguar XF. This is a good thing, because the XF is one of the better proportioned saloon cars of its type. The prototype seen here may just be wearing clever XF-clothing, but you can see from the headlights, low roofline, doors, rear boot lid and exhausts, that this is undoubtedly a baby Jaguar.
Jaguar also insists that the XS will be available with a range of powertrains diverse enough to rival the German BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. Adrian Hallmark from Jaguar has alluded to the XS making use of the Land Rover/Jaguar 4-cylinder petrol and diesel engine family that will start rolling out of the factory by 2015.
The company already uses highly competent ZF gearboxes, so the efficiency of the future XS seems guaranteed. Rumour suggests, however, that a 9-speed iteration of the ZF gearbox isn’t far off for the company.
“If you take BMW they’ve got everything from an EfficientDynamics 109 g/km 3 Series up to an M3, in one fundamental body style. We’d have to be similar in terms of our breadth of product offering and these engines would form a large part of any strategy as we move down.” Hallmark said at the New York Auto Show.
Jaguar/Land Rover has expanded its investment into its new engine manufacturing centre in the UK to more than £500-million. Almost 1 400 new engineering and manufacturing jobs will be created following the plant’s opening later this year.
The good news for petrol heads is that Jaguar assures us that the XS will be rear-wheel drive, so they aren’t falling into the same trap they set for themselves with the front-wheel drive X-Type. “We think that the benefits of rear-wheel drive in terms of dynamics versus the space and efficiency savings you get from front-wheel drive, the trade-off is still in favour of rear-wheel drive for us,” Hallmark commented.
The Jaguar XS is set to enter production in 2015 and, as we know in the highly competitive, luxury, C-segment, it is ‘make or break’ to get the formula just right in the volume sales game. Let’s hope this XS pulls it off.
