1996 Jaguar Xjs 2+2 Convertible 2-door 4.0l on 2040-cars

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2016 Jaguar XF First Drive [w/video]

Jaguar has never had a problem with style or driving joy. Every generation of the British brand's vehicles – with excuses made and accepted in advance for S-Type and X-Type and other outliers – has offered compelling styling and great performance. New kid XF was no exception when it was introduced in 2007. The car's sheetmetal pointed the way forward for the fully up-to-date range we see now, and its confident engines and handling chops were on pace with the best Bimmers, Benzes, and Cadillacs. The first-generation XF made some hay for Jaguar, selling around 280,000 copies through 2014. But those annualized rates still represented a blip on the luxury midsize radar when viewed against the backdrop of the German Three's numbers. Part of that sales story has been down to the E-Classes and 5 Series of the world being consistently excellent, to be sure. But a lot of the blame can be found in Jaguar's historic weak spots. Grace and pace the brand had in spades, but consumer perception of quality and reliability just weren't there, pricing was typically near the top of the class, and the residual values of the cars were low (a combination of all three factors, most likely). Of course, Jag would love to sell a few more cars. But this time, instead of simply building a great-looking, great-driving new XF (which is absolutely the case), the brand is doing some clever non-engineering-based things to put more big cats in more garages than ever before. The tradeoff of very good ride quality is worth the minute amount of roll. After flying all they way to Spain – Pamplona and the Navarra Circuit, by way of Barcelona and a Range Rover adventure you'll hear about soon – I would be remiss not to tell you how the new XF goes down the road. Some 150 kilometers (93 miles) of motorway and challenging b-roads lie between the city with that annual livestock problem and the 2.44-mile, FIA approved racecourse. A route that led me to understand that this XF, in my case the 380-horsepower XF S, has gained more than it has lost in the generational changeover. The company is fully committed to aluminum for its midsizer, with the new car now using a body structure that's 75-percent built from the stuff. I'm told that means a body in white that weighs just over 600 pounds, and an overall weight savings of 11 percent. Body stiffness has been raised by 28 percent in the process.

Check out Harry Metcalfe's 1978 Jaguar XJ 5.3 V12 Coupe

Jaguar may have built its business producing luxury sedans, but it also made some superb coupes over the years, from the XK120 through the E-Type, XJS and XJ220 to today's F-Type. The automaker has largely steered clear of turning its four-door models into two-doors, but there was a time when it did exactly that. And Harry Metcalfe, former editor of the British car magazine Evo, just happens to have one in his garage. Based on the Series II XJ sedan, the XJ Coupe was long and elegant – something along the lines of what you might see today in the form of the Mercedes S-Class Coupe, but smaller and built the better part of four decades ago. With only around 10,000 of them made, the pillar-less XJ-C was much rarer than the more iconic E-Type, and even fewer of them packed the 5.3-liter fuel-injected V12 engine. That makes the former Evo editor's ride a rather scarce one indeed, and well worth checking out in his latest video clip.

2015 Jaguar F-Type V6 S Coupe

My first, ill-fated job in the auto world was at an exotic car dealer in metro Detroit. The job itself sucked, but the cars, they were exceptional. Amidst a sea of Tiptronic Porsche Boxsters, first-gen Mercedes-Benz SLKs and abused second-generation Range Rovers, there were some real gems.
In particular, I have fond memories of a trio of undrivable Jaguar E-Types. Two Series II coupes as well as a Series III convertible (that featured a mostly broken roof) spent the entirety of my brief tenure at the dealership in the back of the musty service garage. I'd make side trips through there just to see the trio of E-Types, which rarely failed to put a big, ridiculous grin on my face.
Since that time in the summer of 2005, there hasn't been a single Jag that's been capable of eliciting the same goofy smile. Not the XFR-S, with its un-aristocratic wing, nor the XKR-S. At the 2013 Los Angeles Auto Show, though, Jaguar introduced this F-Type Coupe. Sure, the droptop model had been around for a bit, but I thought it was the new coupe that most captured the E-Type's classic aesthetic, with a swooping roofline, those gorgeous rear haunches and a long, powerful hood. I had to drive one.