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Daily Driver: 2015 Jaguar XJL AWD

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers who drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Jaguar XJL AWD, reviewed by Seyth Miersma. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, it's your old pal Seyth here with Autoblog. I am in the 2015 Jaguar XJL. That L is for a long-wheelbase. The engine powering this car is the 3.0-liter supercharged V6. My cameras inside probably didn't pick up a lot of that, but the supercharged 3.0-liter does have a nice little growl to it, especially in sport mode [00:00:30] where I'm staying higher in the rev range. It doesn't have that same big, luxurious, meaty, whoofly V8 sound as the naturally aspirated 5.0-liter used to. At 340 horsepower, 332 lb-ft of torque, this engine has everything that you need. I think that they say the 0 to 60 time is around six seconds. Frankly, the car feels a little bit faster even that that. Again, we're talking about a large long-wheelbase car here. What's particularly interesting and [00:01:00] relevant to the weather that you see behind me right now, is that this car is not rear-wheel drive. It is in fact all-wheel drive. Even going into this, knowing obviously that I was in an all-wheel drive car, the first drive really reveals it to handle a lot like a rear-wheel drive vehicle. That's appropriate. That's what you want in a car of this class. Something very luxurious and that has a reputation built on sporting dynamics as opposed to sort of just comfort and refinement. [00:01:30] Jaguar's goal with an all-wheel drive system like this is to make the car still feel very much like a rear-wheel drive vehicle but give you just enough ability to be able to pull out of a corner smartly when the grip is a little bit lower than you'd expect it to be. Obviously if there's some snow on the ground, that's a helpful thing. Or on a day like today, when I'm coming out of a corner on a slightly slippery road, being able to put the power down is advantageous. To be honest, so far the application has been really seamless. The power seems to be [00:02:00] flowing from the engine just to the rear wheels. I feel like I'm getting a little bit of assist, right now I'm entering a corner at a moderate speed and not really slipping at all. It feels like a rear-wheel drive car. I've always loved this XJ.

Looking back on our favorite cars of Mad Men

The second half of the seventh and final season of Mad Men debuted this week, set to cap a run of public and critical acclaim. A decade's worth of interesting cars also made for good television, if you were paying attention. Vehicles didn't often steal the spotlight from Don, Betty, Roger, Joan and the gang, but they added meaningfully to the tone and beauty of the series. We sorted through the wheeled extras from Mad Men's archives, and choose some of our favorites to highlight. The list consists of cars that had at least a small impact on the plot of an episode, though certainly there are worthy gems hiding in just about every street and driving scene. Check out our subjective top five, and then let us know which of the Mad Men cars would be on your list. 1962 Cadillac Coupe DeVille – Season 2 Don Draper's Cadillac Coupe DeVille, all 500 feet of it, shows up in a few seasons of the show, but it's the first appearance that sets the tone. A Cadillac salesman, cut from the same cloth as Draper, asks what Don drives right now. "A Dodge," Don admits. "Those are wonderful if you want to get somewhere," allows the salesman, "this is for when you've already arrived." For a man on the move up corporate and social ladders that's a powerful message, and a pitch-perfect car. 1961 Lincoln Continental – Season 3 The most stylish Lincoln Continental ever is perfect set dressing for the mod show, of course. Though it's interesting that the car isn't cast as dapper Draper's ride, but rather his father-in-law's. Grandpa Gene does what all great grandfathers are bound to: lets his granddaughter Sally drive the big Lincoln while he works the pedals. Generational bond secured, in fine fashion. When you go back through the first three seasons of the show, you'll notice that Continentals show up more than once, too. There's nothing quite like them to evoke the best of the early '60s. 1963 John Deere 110 – Season 3 The only non-standard passenger vehicle on the list, no self-respecting gearhead/Mad Men fan should quibble with the inclusion of the John Deere 110 riding mower. For starters, the Deere is lovely to look at; a miniature version of the American Heartland icon in its green and yellow duds. The 110 appears as if milled from a solid block of steel, just the opposite of today's sleek, plasticky lawn minders (we're scouring Craigslist for one to bring home). The John Deere also has dear ramifications to the plot, too.

Jaguar Land Rover reportedly developing Road Rover car

Reports are circulating in the automotive media that Jaguar Land Rover is developing a vehicle that's not an SUV. Called the Road Rover, it would be an all-electric luxury car with "some" all-terrain capability, hinting at all wheel drive. Initially, the EV would launch in late 2019, then spawn more models to complete the lineup. There is also talk about JLR's interest in an outright purchase of an existing luxury car brand to join its portfolio, and that parent company Tata has already given this strategic move the green light. Tata has also reportedly made moves to protect its JLR ownership via acquiring more of its own stock. All this excitement brings to mind the fact that there once existed an actual Road Rover — the Rover brand. Having evolved into MG Rover before going into administration in 2005 and subsequently reborn in China under SAIC Motor ownership, Rover was a moderately posh British carmaker just beneath the level of prestige that Jaguar offered. For some years, both were part of the same corporation. The last Rover saloons were designed and built with BMW input, and at that point Land Rover had already become part of Ford, almost a decade after Jaguar did. Ford's tenure with Land Rover lasted from 2000 to 2008, when Tata bought the British brand — along with the Rover name. Would it just make sense to badge the road car Rover, with no Road or Land affixed to it? Rover's slovenly demise is more than a decade old now, but there's plenty of valuable history still embedded in the long-shelved Viking ship logo. Cast aside memories of Sterling-badged Honda Legend platform siblings and unattractively Federalized SD1 series cars, and take whatever good the 1999-2005 Rover 75 brought to the table — maybe it's time for Rover to be reborn in the current Jaguar Land Rover family. According to Autocar, the first Road Rover would be developed in tandem with the next-generation Jaguar XJ, so they would share an aluminum architecture suitable for both internal combustion engines and battery electric technology, depending of the model. If anything, there is delicious irony to this: The 1980s XJ generation that Jaguar spent decades developing was claimed to be engineered in such a way that the occasional stablemate Rover's Buick-derived 3,5-liter V8 wouldn't have fit in its engine bay — to preserve the Jaguar bloodline. To have the new XJ and a Rover cross paths again would only be fitting. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party.