1999 Jaguar Xj8 Vanden Plas on 2040-cars

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The diesel premium in our Jaguar XE quickly pays for itself

Our long-term 2017 Jaguar XE 20d AWD recently returned from a 2,000-mile road trip. My wife and I took a few days to visit her family in Auburn, Alabama, and it was the first real chance anyone has had to stretch the Jaguar's legs outside of Michigan. It was also a good opportunity to see what sort of fuel economy I could wring out of the XE's 2.0-liter turbocharged diesel. The diesel engine was the main reason I chose it over our equally lovely long-term 2017 Audi A4. For me, chasing fuel economy is a great way to stay focused on the road. The XE 20d AWD is rated at 30 city/40 highway and 34 combined. The drive to and from Auburn is almost entirely highway, so I knew matching the highway rating would be easy enough. The XE has a 14.8 gallon tank, so I was looking at a minimum of 600 miles per tank and four fills for the trip, counting the initial pre-departure fill. I had two main concerns: first, this was a new route, so I didn't know how available diesel would be along I-75; second, crossing the Appalachian Mountains was going to severely cut into my overall average. The first worry turned out to be a nonissue, especially as we went further south. Not once was I forced to go from station to station looking for a lone green-handled pump. People in the South love their Cummins, Powerstroke, and Duramax-powered trucks, meaning diesel pumps were plentiful. Rolling up in a Jaguar does garner attention, though. An older gentleman even asked if I knew that I was putting diesel in the car. It seems he didn't have much faith in my reading comprehension skills. The mountains were more of a problem. There was literally no getting around them, but were west of the highest parts, so it could have been worse. The indicated fuel economy dropped by 4 mpg on the way up, from 47 mpg to 43. Still, I managed more than 650 miles from a tank, though I was starting to push my luck. We filled up for the short final leg. By the time we rolled into Auburn, the display indicated 44 mpg – pretty damn good, I'd say. It held there for the entire trip. Calculating the actual mileage revealed the computer was generous by 2 mpg, but that's par for the course. Few automakers display precise numbers. The relative ease of getting this sort of fuel economy was complemented by the price of diesel. At each one of my four stops, diesel cost less than premium, the required fuel in all of the XE's gasoline engines. According to AAA, the same is true nationwide.

Aston and Jag from James Bond Spectre have at it

Daniel Craig hasn't made a bad James Bond film yet. Spectre is his next step into the iconic role that's due to hit theaters on November 6, and it doesn't look likely to ruin his streak. Still, that's a long wait for such an exciting movie. If you're willing to possibly spoil just a little for yourself, a new featurette shows part of one of the big car chases right now. From what we've seen so far, the chase through Rome in Spectre has earned a good amount of screen time. While the reason for it in the plot is a mystery, that doesn't really matter anyway. What's important is that the scene stars Bond in the Aston Martin DB10 and a villain played by Dave Bautista in the now supercharged V8-powered version of the Jaguar C-X75 racing around the Italian capital's tight streets at night. This clip gives a glimpse at some of the work necessary to get the difficult filming completed. We've seen some of that effort before, though, when footage of the preparation for one shot leaked out. Craig reportedly sustained a pretty bad bump on the head during the shooting, and an earlier rumor also suggested that Bond might get behind the wheel of a Fiat 500 at some point in the scene.

Jaguar's V8-powered XE looks to take aim at the BMW M3

It seems that Jaguar's littlest sedan is about to get one of the company's biggest engines. One of our spy photographers caught the company testing a disguised XE. While most people's first instincts would be to dissect the car, our photographer paid some extra attention to the number plate, and looked up the car's registration. He says the registration reveals that this little car is packing a 5.0-liter V8. The only sort of 5.0-liter V8 Jaguar makes is supercharged and makes 550 horsepower or more. So what we're probably looking at is a future 550-horsepower XE R. On the car itself, there appear to be larger intake vents on each side of the front bumper, likely for cooling off a much bigger, hotter engine. And of course a more aggressive appearance. The V8 theory is further backed up by the quad-tip exhaust that clearly needs more development. Aside from these changes, this XE looks pretty similar to the sportier models in the current range. It has the same side skirts as the XE R-Sport and XE S. It also uses the same wheels as the XE S. We can safely say that at least the wheels will be different when the V8 model reaches production. As for when that will be, we'd say don't expect to see a revealed production model for at least a year, and possibly more, since there appears to be a decent amount of development left to do. Related Video: