2004 Jaguar Xj8 100k Miles*leather*sunroof*heated Seats*clean Carfax* on 2040-cars

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How and why Jaguar designed an electric SUV

Adrian Belew, front man of famed progressive rock band King Crimson and collaborator with Bowie, Zappa, and the Talking Heads, released a prescient song in 1982, but we didn't know exactly how prophetic it was until this week. The song was titled Big Electric Cat, and its lyrics seemed to predict nearly 35 years ago the unveiling of Jaguar's first all-electric vehicle, a production-ready crossover concept with the not-so-ingenious name, I-Pace. She arrives like a limo/Smooth and moving/On the prowl through the crowd/To the beat of the city/She glows in the dark/Wherever she parks/Concrete crumbles and the night rumbles. At first glimpse of the I-Pace, you may not have precisely the same feeling of disintegration as the roadbed Belew mentions, but there is no denying that the new Jag is important for the brand. Flush with investment from its corporate overlords at Tata, the company is on its most robust product offensive ever, rounding out its lineup to become a full-range manufacturer, investing in autonomous driving and projective head-up technologies, nearly doubling global sales, and now going electric. "This is probably the most important car since the E-Type, I really mean that," says Jaguar director of design Ian Callum. "And when we get this car out into production and it gains recognition and popularity, I think history will show it's a significant step for the brand. Not only because we're embracing the future, quite openly and honestly, but because we're going to beat the rest of them. Tesla is there already, but none of the rest." As a challenger brand – one not in the top of mind consideration set like rivals at Mercedes, Audi, or Lexus – Jaguars are made or broken on this kind of differentiation. The I-Pace is certainly distinctive, and looks like nothing else on the road. Like many contemporary Jaguars, its rear three-quarter view is its most compelling, with the slender half-round taillights inspired by the legendary E-Type that were first revived on the F-Type and have since become a signature. But here, the rear end is shaved off and in an angular concavity that seems an effort to take as much mass as possible out of the back, and one that echoes elsewhere on the vehicle: in the scalloped sides, in the continuous path of glass from the base of the front windshield to (almost) the base of the rear liftgate. But especially in the foreshortened and deep-nostriled hood.

Watch a Jaguar tow a man on skis to 117 mph

Jaguar wagons are fun. Skiing is fun. Combine the two, and you get the above, which looks extra fun. Apparently there is a Guinness world record for top speed skiing while being towed by a vehicle. According to the video, that record was just under 70 mph. While we're not experts on high-speed skiing, that actually seems a little low, and so did Jaguar and Olympic skier Graham Bell. So Jaguar and Bell went to an undisclosed location in the Arctic Circle to break the record. Jaguar brought along an XF S Sportbrake, a 380-horsepower wagon that is now available in America (yay!). They hooked up a line to the back, Bell suited up, held on, and rode along to a final speed of about 117 mph, a full 47 mph faster than the last record. Frankly, we found this to be a pretty cool activity (no pun intended). We think maybe it should be considered for a new Olympic sport. Sure would be better than ice dancing. It could look something like the Bonneville Speed Week, with a big multi-mile stretch of snow to be towed along. Think about it, International Olympic Committee, you still have time before the 2018 Winter Olympics. Related Video: Image Credit: Jaguar Jaguar Wagon Luxury Videos jaguar xf sportbrake skiing

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.