Motoring: Jaguar's roar becoming somewhat muted

Published on Tuesday 9 September 2008 21:53

Time for new owners Tata to reassess the famous marque's place in the market, writes Jim Dunn

I CHERISH this dream that somewhere on the top floor of Tata headquarters one of the big chiefs is about to read the riot act to the senior executives of Jaguar, which they recently bought over.

You can survive virtually any endeavour by playing the underdog, but only for a limited time. Jaguar has been doing it for decades. Hence its current predicament.

There no denying that the XJ has always been the trend-setting luxury car, but not enough people, particularly Germans, can be persuaded to buy it. And while the new mid-size XF saloon seems to be winning plenty of awards, shiny trophies don't affect the balance sheet – as the company should know only too well.

After a week with the flagship XKR convertible I'm not convinced the company should still be in this sector of the market.

The reason it is, of course, is because of the legendary E-type, or XKE, which whether in convertible or coupe variant can be argued as one of the most beautiful cars of all time.

When new owners Ford decided to replace the ugly ducking XJ-S with a new XK back in 1994 I still recall the agitated state of a board member who'd just flown to the Canadian Grand Prix from the meeting where the car had been given the nod. He was desperate to tell someone, and I was the one.

Given the limited budget the XK was allowed, Jaguar made a pretty good fist of the original, but with its replacement they seem to have run out of ideas.

For a start, its bum looks big, whether in coupe or convertible form, and the tacked-on spoiler, which helps distinguish the XKR, only makes matters worse. It maybe wouldn't be quite so bad if the obvious bulk was there to make the rear seats useable – but it isn't, because they aren't.

And there's no point in saying that it doesn't matter because rear seats never work in coupes. Tell that to Maserati, who manage to fit two very useable seats for adults in the back of their GranTurismo, which is only 90mm longer than the Jag.

The Jag also feels big from behind the wheel, with those curving wings and the out-of-sight extremities. Although to be fair, there are parking sensors at each end to help place the car while parking.

The heart of the car is the free-revving 4.2 litre V8, which churns out a respectable 410bhp when supercharged for the XKR, and this is delivered through the standard flappy paddle semi-automatic gearbox.

Floor the throttle and keep it there and the XKR will get to 60mph from standstill in just five seconds and keep gathering pace strongly all the way to the electronically enforced 155mph.

Get them to disarm this for the autobahn and Jaguar reckons that the car is good for three miles a minute. Though a relatively cheap way to bolt on more power, the supercharger is hardly the most fuel-efficient mechanism around, and the power needed to turn it makes the Jaguar struggle to achieve 20mpg. This is no longer acceptable for a long-distance tourer.

Such is the relatively flat power delivery of the engine with the torque figure almost exactly matching that of the horsepower, that you can just stick it in drive and tap into all the performance that you want without every having to revert to the paddles behind the steering wheel.

Hold on to the lower gears while on a twisty road and you'll hear a suitably fruity note from the exhaust , especially when the hood is down, but I preferred to simply let the car waft along quietly with the draft excluder and heated seats keeping me comfortable and the first rate stereo keeping me amused.

That's something that Jaguars have always excelled at – acknowledging the marque's core values. The leather upholstery used is absolutely top rank, with all the minor detail finishing you'd expect to find in the world's most expensive cars.

There's a real feeling of quality from behind the wheel yet the company has resisted the urge to clutter the dashboard and kept everything simple and straightforward to use.

There was an intermittent fault with the passenger-side window which repeatedly lowered itself without being bid, first on a trip west along the M9 then, more worryingly, in a wet and windy restaurant car park.