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Autocar compares new Maserati Quattroporte to Jaguar XJ

Autocar's Steve Sutcliffe took the 2014 Maserati Quattroporte on a spin along snowy mountain roads to test it for a specific brief: as a limousine for the chauffeured class. It's sporting credentials are impressive: Twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V8, 532 horsepower, 475 pound-feet of torque in casual circumstances that rises to 532 lb-ft in overboost, a 0-to-60 mile-per-hour sprint of 4.7 seconds and a top speed of 191 mph.
However, citing Maserati's desire to not just increase its sales to 50,000-per-annum by 2015, but to sell many more of its cars in China, Sutcliffe wanted to find out if the livery side of the Quattroporte could match its sport sedan side. So after taking the pilot's seat and trying out the sport settings, Sutcliffe hops in back to test out the CEO's seat.
Then he compares the Quattroporte against the long-wheelbase Jaguar XJ with its supercharged V8, a sedan that's 15,000 pounds less expensive than the Maserati. It doesn't take long for him to find that one of them is a clear winner when it comes to transporting VIPs. To find out which one, enjoy the video below.

Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations could build standalone models

Jaguar Land Rover may be set to turn its Special Vehicle Operations division into something much bigger than a mere in-house tuner. Bloomberg spoke to the head of JLR's high-performance, customization outfit, John Edwards, who hinted that his team may move beyond simply modifying F-Types, Range Rovers and the like. "We're certainly looking at that, and we've got the capability to do that," Edwards told AN. "Is there an opportunity for us to do a completely standalone car? Maybe." Such a move into full-scale, standalone models would be a big step, particularly for a division that's still kind of in its infancy. Bloomberg references the success of Mercedes-AMG, but the German division has had the benefit of decades of growth. AMG spent years and years building high-performance versions of all manner of mainstream Mercedes vehicles, before moving onto cars like the SLS AMG and AMG GT, which have no mainstream analog. In other words, AMG had a long time to develop a reputation building high-performance vehicles that people know and recognize before it moved into building vehicles of its own. We aren't entirely convinced that SpecOps wouldn't benefit from taking a similar approach, delivering additional SVR vehicles, like the rumored XE SVR, before striking out on its own. We'd like to know what you think, though. Is it already time for Special Vehicle Operations to build standalone models, or should it learn to walk before it runs by modifying more of Jaguar Land Rover's existing product. Have your say in Comments. Related Video:

Jaguar might not sell many XF Sportbrakes in the U.S., but here's why it's trying

One of the wonderful surprises of this year was when we learned that the U.S. would receive the XF Sportbrake wagon, and — less of a surprise — it's as much a looker as the previous generation. And while we're never one to look a gift car in the grille, it did seem strange that Jaguar would attempt to bring a wagon to the U.S., especially when it already had a similarly sized F-Pace crossover. So we spoke with Jaguar CEO Joe Eberhardt, Jaguar Design Director Ian Callum, and Jaguar's head of product planning in the U.S. to find out what prompted the company to bring the XF Sportbrake here. There were a few key reasons. One was simply that the folks at Jaguar really like the car, and they know that journalists like wagons. That doesn't exactly pay the bills for a car, but the enthusiasm is good. According to these people at Jaguar, though, they do believe there is a market for the car, and they expect to sell most of them on the coasts. Obviously, even if Jaguar sees a wagon market, it's still going to be much smaller than for crossover SUVs. But no matter how small that market is, Jaguar has an extra advantage for bringing the wagon here. The company knew it was going to make a wagon regardless of whether it would come to America, since the wagon market in Europe is so strong. In fact, Jaguar expects that half of XF sales in Europe will be Sportbrakes. So the majority of the engineering costs will be covered from those sales. The folks at Jaguar also told us that the car wasn't difficult to homologate for the U.S., so the cost of bringing it here was minimal. So in the worst case scenario that has the XF Sportbrake hardly selling in America, Jaguar isn't going to be seriously hurt. And if it's a success, then it's even more of a success. So the XF Sportbrake isn't purely a passion product, but that's OK. It means consumers have one more option to the multitude of crossovers in the U.S., and enthusiasts have the chance to own a super cool wagon. Also, although the XF Sportbrake is currently only available in America in top-level 380-horsepower S trim, Jaguar said lower trim levels and lower-output engines, all at lower prices, will be available here in the coming year or so. Meaning there will be even more ways to satisfy your wagon itch. Related Video: