By JERRY GARRETT
Published: June 10, 2006
IAN CALLUM, who designed the new Jaguar XK, has a framed letter on the wall of his office in England. "Whoops!" the letter begins. "I am SO sorry!"
The apology came from Mr. Callum's younger brother, Moray, who is also an auto designer. (Moray recently became design director for Ford, Lincoln and Mercury cars in North America, after serving as head of styling for Mazda.)
In 1995, Moray Callum had just started to restyle the Ford Taurus. To add what he considered a sporting touch to the otherwise staid family sedan, he borrowed the elliptical grille opening of some classic Jaguars. He set Ford's blue oval emblem in the middle of it, atop a stripe of chrome.
That decision by Moray, now 48, loomed large when it came time for his brother Ian, who is 51 and Jaguar's director of design, to restyle the British automaker's 10-year-old sporty coupe and convertible.
"Everyone wants to know why the new XK has a 'Taurus nose,' " Ian lamented in an interview. "Done in by my own brother!"
Whatever the geneology of its nose, the new XK has arrived, like the eagerly anticipated scion of fading aristocrats, with the burden of great expectations. The car is expected to do nothing less than pull the revered English automaker out of its doldrums; give its parent, the Ford Motor Company, an overdue return on a very large investment; and put Jaguar back on the short list of great European luxury marques.
The new XK is elegant to behold, but it seems to lack the swagger and rakish charm of progenitors like the XK 120, XK SS, XKE and XJ 220.
The XK's teardrop-shape headlamps and taillights are one departure. "I looked at the old E-Type elliptical headlights and said, 'It's been done,' " the designer said. "Too obvious. Let's do something different."
The coupe's liftback, however, is pure E-Type. The convertible's rear haunches look a bit swollen, but that is because the trunk had to be big enough to hold the retracted softtop and some luggage.
The Jag does not have a retracting hardtop, like rivals from Cadillac, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz. "There's more power and presence in having two cars — a convertible and a coupe," Mr. Callum said. "It's not just a choice; it's to challenge which one to buy."
The rear wing seems a little too large — it houses the mandatory center brake light. As a result, the spoiler provides more rear downforce than desired, and can cause the nose to lift at speeds over 130 miles an hour. That, happily, is not an everyday worry.
The hood line is not as low as Mr. Callum would have liked it to be; he is also not fond of the lower air dam, which gives the new XK a shovel-nose look. These touches were mandated by new European rules governing front-end design, intended to reduce injuries to pedestrians. "The dimensions are set by regulations," Mr. Callum said of the front end.
There are "gills," or side vents, behind the front wheels that augment the car's catfish face. These recall Mr. Callum's early career designing cars like the Interceptor for the British automaker Jensen.
And then there is that snout. "I believe the grille will continue to be a signature Jaguar styling cue long after the Taurus is gone," Mr. Callum said emphatically.
The Scottish-born designer said he deliberately sought a controversial look with a bit of "discord — and a sense of edge." If his goal was to do more than recycle well-established Jaguar themes and designs — taking the easy, noncontroversial path — it would seem he has been successful. "I wouldn't dumb the car down, just because it's a Jaguar," he said.
The interior styling is less contentious. The champagne-color convertible that I tested featured a sublime mix of real walnut burl veneer and creamy caramel leather.
The contoured front seats cocoon the driver and passenger, though the tiny rear seats are suitable only for very small children or leprechauns. The driver looks over the long hood like an airline pilot surveying the curvature of the Earth.
The remote keyfob doesn't fit into an ignition switch; it merely needs to be in the car. A starter button lights up the 300-horsepower, 4.2-liter V-8. The restrained rumble of that engine won't disturb the neighbors, but it will warm the long-neglected cockles of an Anglophile's heart.
More powerful XK's are expected to come — with 420 and even 500 horsepower — at six-figure prices. The smooth six-speed ZF automatic transmission — this gearbox is not a choice but a given — is one of this car's finest attributes.
Early drivers have had notably mixed views about the speed-sensitive rack-and-pinion steering. Some drivers have described it as numb, and others as too heavy. I thought it was nicely weighted.
Curtis Turner, the late stock car driver, used to say the ultimate test of a car's turning prowess was whether it could make a U-turn on a two-lane bridge (presumably, in Turner's experience, with a revenuer in hot pursuit). The XK can come exhilaratingly close to nailing that standard — quite a feat considering its 11-inch-wide tires rated for high speeds. The XK has a turning circle of 33.3 feet, compared with 39 feet for the latest Chevrolet Corvette or the Cadillac XLR.
Still, the XK is the least aerodynamic convertible in the over-$50,000 class. The Jag's drag coefficient of 0.36 compares with 0.32 for the BMW 650i, 0.31 for the XLR and 0.29 for both the Mercedes SL and Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet.
Previous XK's have been referred to euphemistically as sporting cars — a backhanded compliment for Jaguars that didn't cut the Grey Poupon in the handling department. This new cat feels light on its paws. It sinks its claws into the pavement and springs eagerly out of the turns.
Its suspension — unequal-length double wishbones, front and rear, plus coil springs — have been more precisely tuned for performance that is closer to a true sports car's. Computers provide four-corner control of pitch, yaw and damping of the Bilstein shock absorbers. The faint of heart will appreciate driver's aids like traction and stability controls; brake force distribution for panic stops; and better antilock brakes.
The newly invigorated ride is also steadied by a wheelbase stretched six inches. While the new XK is virtually the same length as the old XK8, it is 3.7 inches wider and 4.7 inches taller. In its effort to set itself apart from high-prestige German and Japanese cars, Jaguar has developed an aluminum strategy: the XK, like the latest XJ sedan, has an all-aluminum chassis and body. (The Audi A8, built with an aluminum space frame, is the only mainstream competitor that can make a similar claim.)
If the XK feels tightly put together that is because it is. Sections of the car are both riveted and joined with high-strength aerospace adhesives, much as modern aircraft are put together. The aluminum construction helped Jaguar cut 263 pounds from the coupe and 375 from the convertible. That's a good 500 or so pounds lighter than the steel-body Mercedes SL500 or BMW 650i.
This, in turn, helps the Jaguar to laudable, class-leading fuel economy. In my testing, the convertible averaged 24 m.p.g. over all.
The coupe is, understandably, slightly more taut and quiet than the convertible, although it provides far less hedonistic pleasure. The convertible's semi-rigid canvas-covered top drops and stores in the trunk in 18 seconds. A couple of thin roll-on suitcases might fit in the drop-top's cramped trunk, if they don't get in the way of the folded top or its mechanism.
The coupe's trunk is almost 50 percent larger; optional run-flat tires eliminate the spare, freeing a bit more luggage space.
The XK is the first Jaguar convertible with rollbars that pop up in a rollover.
The convertible has a price premium of about $6,000 over the coupe, which starts at $75,500. The convertible I tested had a sticker of $85,200, including the $665 shipping charge. This represents a price bump of about $6,000 over the discontinued XK8, but the Jaguar is still priced some $14,000 below the Mercedes SL.
Of course, emotion is more likely than pricing to seal a deal in the premium sports class. In that regard, the XK would seem to have an edge; some shoppers are put off by the BMW 650i's styling and complicated iDrive controls. The Mercedes SL may no longer seem so exclusive, given that some 12,000 of them are now sold each year. The Lexus SC 430 is — forgive me for putting this so delicately — rather homely.
True, the XK is far from the most handsome Jaguar ever; that title was retired with the glorious E-Type, the standard for British sports car styling since 1961. And while the new XK doesn't quite have the movie-idol good looks of the recently departed XK8, it is, for my money, the sexiest sports car under $100,000. Even with the proboscis of a Taurus.
INSIDE TRACK: What happens to sex appeal when government regulators get involved.
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