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Jaguar fully reveals the $71,445 XF S Sportbrake

Jaguar has finally revealed the 2018 XF Sportbrake without any sort of camouflage or subterfuge. It does look pretty much the way we expected, though; an XF with a longer, but still low and sleek roof. That's a good thing in our book. That nice, long roof also allows for an impressive 31.7 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats, which we should point out is just a bit more than the far less attractive BMW 6 Series Gran Turismo revealed yesterday. The Jaguar XF Sportbrake also comes with plenty of performance since it's only available with all-wheel drive and the supercharged 3.0-liter V6 that produces 380 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque. Jaguar claims this powertrain will get the wagon to 60 mph in 5.3 seconds. Jaguar also includes self-leveling rear suspension on the Sportbrake. Inside, you'll find the same interior as the XF sedan, with one key difference: a vast, fixed sunroof. Though it's a bit disappointing that it doesn't open, the unbroken view of the outside is beautiful. But if you don't like the view, you can close a sun blind over it, and you don't have to touch a button. You simply wave your hand past a sensor and it will open or close. Though novel, we can see many incidents of accidentally opening or closing it while reaching for, say, the overhead map lights. The Jaguar activity key wristband is also available, along with large screens for instruments and infotainment. The sun blind gesture controls, activity key, and additional screens seem to be options though, as they aren't included on the base S model that starts at $71,445. That's nearly a $3,600 upcharge over the sedan. However, you do get a gorgeous car with more space. It's also barely more expensive than that aforementioned BMW. If you do want those fancy tech options, you can option them in, or have them added as part of the First Edition Sportbrake, which starts at $73,095. Related Video:

This mule is the first evidence Jaguar is working on a 3 Series fighter

Rumors of an entry-level, BMW 3 Series-fighting Jaguar sedan have been floating around for quite some time, but thanks to our intrepid spy photographers, we now have visible proof that such a model is, in fact, in the works.
Despite this tester's XF fittings, it's clear that what lies beneath is an entirely different beast. The doors have been shortened, roofline adjusted, rear deck lopped off and exhaust replaced, giving us a better idea of the new sedan's smaller dimensions and details. The new Jag, which may be dubbed "XS," is expected to ride on Jaguar's PLA (Premium Lightweight Architecture) platform, touting weight-saving materials that should do a lot to keep overall heft to a minimum. Both turbocharged four- and supercharged six-cylinder powertrains are expected to be on tap.
Codenamed X760, the new small sedan will reportedly hit the market in 2015. Earlier reports have indicated that a new crossover - Jag's first ever - riding on the same platform will arrive shortly thereafter, so that suggests that the platform will be fitted with all-wheel drive as well.

Driving Jaguar's Continuation Lightweight E-Type

Something has happened to sports cars over the past 15-20 years. While reaching ever-higher levels of quantitative dominance the driving experience continues to become more sterile. Stability control, torque vectoring, variable electronic steering racks, lightning-quick dual-clutch automatic transmissions – all these make it easier to harness more power and drive faster than ever before. And yet too often it feels like something is missing. There is a growing divide between the capabilities of the modern performance car and the driver's sense of connection to the experience. In an era like the one we're in now, the Jaguar Lightweight E-Type hits you like a slap in the face. The story of the Lightweight E-Type goes back to 1963, when Jaguar set aside eighteen chassis numbers for a run of "Special GT E-Type" cars. These were factory-built racers with aluminum bodies, powered by the aluminum-block, 3.8-liter inline-six found in Jaguar's C- and D-Type LeMans racecars of the 1950s. Of the eighteen cars slated for production, only twelve were built and delivered to customers in 1964. For the next fifty years, those last six chassis numbers lay dormant, until their rediscovery a couple of years ago in a book in Jaguar's archives. In an era like the one we're in now, the Jaguar Lightweight E-Type hits you like a slap in the face. Jaguar Heritage, a section of Jaguar Land Rover's new Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division, took on the task of researching the original Lightweight E-Types and developing the methods to create new ones. Every aspect of the continuation Lightweight E-Type, from the development of the tools and molds used to build the cars, to the hand-craftsmanship, reflects doing things the hard way. They may not build them like they used to, but with these six special E-Types, Jaguar comes awfuly close, if not better. Working alongside the design team, Jaguar Heritage made a CAD scan of one side of an original Lightweight E-Type body. That scan was flipped to create a full car's worth of measurements. That ensured greater symmetry and better fit than on the original Lightweight E-Types (which could see five to ten millimeter variance, left-to-right). The scan was also used to perfect the frame, while Jaguar looked through notes in its crash repair books to reverse-engineer the Lightweight E-Type's suspension. The team repurposed a lot of existing tooling for the continuation cars, and developed the rest from analysis of the CAD scan.