1990 Jaguar Xjs on 2040-cars

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Top Gear has an Extra Gear problem | Episode Review

When the BBC announced Extra Gear, I was excited. As an avid fan of show's like The Talking Dead – companion show to AMC's hit The Walking Dead – a behind-the-scenes look at my favorite motoring show sounded promising. But with the fifth episodes of each show, I'm worried that Top Gear is suffering to keep Extra Gear interesting. We'll start with Chris Evans, inarguably the most heavily criticized member of the new Top Gear team. Evans is progressively less shouty and more comfortable filming while driving in each episode – the fifth is no different. He's almost likable in the Zenos E10 video, like a ginger James May, and he delivers accurate and eloquent driving impressions. The review is entertaining, until Extra Gear shows the producers cut a huge element – an old-versus-new sprint around the Race of Champions circuit at the Olympic Stadium in London. Former Formula 1 ace David Coulthard would drive a Caterham 360, while current F1 pro Daniel Riccardo rocked the Zenos. If the entire premise of Evans review is that the Zenos E10 is the newest of the new for British super-lightweight track toys, why did the producers decide to leave a race against the segment's standard bearer for Extra Gear? It's a baffling move, cutting a segment of the film that reinforces Evans' excitement over the Zenos. Rory Reid's Jaguar F-Type SVR piece is excellent. Fifty five years to the day after Jaguar test driver Norman Dewis raced to the Geneva Motor Show in a second E-Type for display, Reid would attempt the same feat in an SVR. If he failed, Jaguar wouldn't have a car to display. Dewis made the 750-mile trip with 13 hours of notice, and Reid would need to do the same. It's a brilliant, simple premise that reminded me of Jeremy Clarkson's so-called "Race against God" in a Jaguar XJ, way back in season 16. The history of the challenge and Dewis' gravelly commentary add gravitas. But the entire film goes by so fast. It's longer than Evans' Zenos video or Harris' BMW M2 film, but at less than ten minutes, Reid and the SVR deserved more screen time. Extra Gear poured salt in that particular wound with a great segment featuring Norman Dewis that deserved to be in the main show. Reid takes the famed test driver for a spin around the Dunsfold track, then, instead of the comedian of the week, the hosts interview Dewis on Extra Gear's couch.

Jaguar lets first outsiders drive new F-Type

What do you do when you're an automaker with an all-new and brand-defining sports car, one of them with a supercharged V8 cranking out 495 horsepower? You let proven race drivers test them out on track and on the road.
And what do you do if you're Jaguar and you're in that situation? Why, naturally, you make a video of it. That's how we get footage of racers Martin Brundle, Justin Bell and Christian Danner being choppered into the UK's Snetterton track to test the V6-equipped Jaguar F-Type S prototype. Then when they're finished with kerb-lined apexes, they take the V8 S prototype out onto the roads to run it through hedge-lined apexes.
According to one of them, "very fast, very nimble, great engine" is what will soon be headed our way. Check it out in the video below.

Entry-level Jaguar X-Type successor due in 2015, crossover a year later

Jaguar's future product plans keep on slipping, slipping, slipping onto the internet, and the latest on it's entry-level luxury challenger is a 2015 due date. According to Automobile magazine, "most significant game-changer from Coventry" will be arriving on the same PLA platform that supports the Jaguar XJ and 2013 Range Rover. Kacher says the small sedan has already got the green light as codename X760, and will bow first as a four-door sedan, then as a crossover a year later.
This puts a date to a recent Autocar report that a small sedan and crossover were in the works. We've been getting reports of and concepts for a successor to the X-Type ever since Tata bought Jaguar - like the Bertone B99 concept last year, and this enthusiast concept more recently - since everyone knows it's what has to happen for "a new Jaguar" to succeed. We're looking forward to seeing what the English maker comes up with; if it remains true to form, it could be one of the few luxury competitors whose distinct model each look, well, truly distinct.