2010 Jaguar Xfr Base Sedan 4-door 5.0l on 2040-cars

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This or That: Mercedes S-Class 350SD vs. 2003 Jaguar XJR [w/poll]

Budget. It's a wretched word, whether you're going out to eat, shipping for a new outfit or, more relevant to today's discussion, buying a car. Massive marketing machines have convinced us, as a population, to buy the best you can afford, repercussions be damned – If you've saved up some money, spend it! All of it, on whatever it is that currently sits atop your personal Amazon wishlist, be it a Timex that takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin', a $17,000 Gold Apple Watch or a $60,000 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona. But what if the best you can afford is... say, $12,815? For that price, you can buy a brand-new 2015 Nissan Versa (including destination), assuming you're happy with zero options and a manual transmission. For that price, you'll get standard air conditioning, a CD player and... well, a warranty. Pretty sensible choice, Captain Frugal. But also ridiculously uninspired. And so that brings us to today's edition of This or That, in which two Autoblog editors pick differing sides of an argument and duke it out to see which one of us can convince you, dear reader, is better. Or at least less wrong. You be the judge. As a refresher, I'm two-and-two on these challenges, having lost the first and second editions before storming back in rounds three and four. Today, as alluded to above, we decided to throw our collective brainpower (oh lord, what have we done?) at what may be the single most difficult question currently confounding the best minds our planet has to offer: What is the best used used luxury car you can buy for the price of a 2015 Nissan Versa? Shall we meet our contenders? Allow me to introduce you to the most perfect luxury car money can buy (assuming the amount of money you're holding is equal to the amount of the cheapest new car currently sold in America, the Nissan Versa). My pick is the 1991 Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Not just any S-Class, but the legendary W126, which was produced between 1979 and 1992. And not just any W126, either, but one powered by a 3.5-liter turbodiesel engine. And with that, I send the argument to my esteemed colleague, Associate Editor Chris Bruce. Bruce: Jeremy, we had over $12,000 to budget for this challenge, and the best you can manage is a 24-year-old diesel Mercedes? I love oil-burners as much as any other auto writer with their mountains of torque and huge cruising range, but you're making this too easy on me. Also, you're really choosing a brown, diesel, German luxury sedan?

Jaguar planning all-electric E-Pace crossover

Jaguar hasn't quite finished rolling out the new F-Pace (pictured above), and already reports are circulating of another crossover model to join it in the near future. According to Automobile, it'll be called the E-Pace. Here's the kicker: it'll be all-electric. The E-Pace would take advantage of ultra-efficient aerodynamics in order to drop its drag coefficient to just 0.28 g, thereby increasing efficiency. It'd also be the first fully electric model from Jaguar, and would likely be even smaller than the sporty new F-Pace. Through-the-road all-wheel drive would give it poor weather traction, and the electric motors would provide plenty of low-end punch. The model would go up against the Tesla Model X and a potential production version of the Audi E-Tron Quattro concept revealed in Frankfurt. Rather than handle production in-house, the E-Pace could emerge as the mysterious upcoming model which Jaguar Land Rover is planning to have Magna Steyr build on its behalf. The factory in Graz, Austria has long built the G-Class for Mercedes-Benz, continues to assemble the Mini Countryman, and has also handled models like the Aston Martin Rapide and BMW X3. Automobile figures that Jaguar would need to make at least 20,000 units each year to make the model profitable. For comparison's sake, Tesla is projected to move about 33,000 Model S units in 2015. Even if the E-Pace falls short of this target, the project could be worthwhile for JLR purely for publicity purposes and to help cut its average fleet emissions. Related Video:

Jaguar may join the FWD, small-car parade

Was it right for Chevrolet to detune the 1975 Corvette's base engine to 165 horsepower? Was Aston Martin wrong to make the Toyota iQ-based Cygnet? Is BMW crazy to be testing the new 1 Series with three-cylinder engines and front-wheel drive? It seems now, just as in the 1970s and 1980s, that emissions regulations and social considerations are driving some automakers to adopt unbefitting practices to maintain acceptance in the eyes of governments and consumers. Jaguar has jumped on the bandwagon, and is considering development of small, frugal, front-wheel-drive cars to help lower Jaguar Land Rover's average vehicle CO2 levels in light of tightening European emissions regulations, Autocar reports.
By 2020, the European Union expects the model range of every manufacturer to average 95 grams per kilometer, which is a new law passed by the European Parliament in April. Manufacturers who make more than 300,000 vehicles per year must meet these targets, and JLR is expected to be producing up to 700,000 vehicles per year by then. CO2 regulations after 2020 will only get stricter, as EU politicians already are talking about lowering CO2 levels to between 68 g/km and 78 g/km. (To put that in perspective, Autocar posits that driving a fully charged electric vehicle in Europe produces about 75 g/km when factoring in the power-generation infrastructure.)
Jaguar has some choices here, but so far they all have drawbacks. It could develop a new, compact chassis architecture for a line of compact vehicles, but the investment required for such a project could be prohibitively expensive. Jaguar has been looking into using the Land Rover Evoque platform for a small SUV, Autocar reports, but Land Rover brand manager John Edwards raises issue with such a plan, saying it may not be financially feasible.