Autocar's chief road tester Matt Prior recently joined Jaguar's development guru Mike Cross to take a ride in the new Jaguar XJ.
The pair took the flagship Jaguar XJ Supersport LWB on the roads around Welshpool, giving Matt a chance to sample the car from the passenger seats as Cross completed sign-off work for the car's ride and handling traits.
Video exclusive - see the Jaguar XJ development drive
See the high-res Jaguar XJ picture gallery.
"We wanted the agility and the steering to feel the same as the XF, but it's a smoother car," says Cross. "But what I'm most pleased about is that the XJ has a nice, agile feel to it."
Asked about rivals, Cross says Jaguar wants the XJ to tread a middle path: "If you imagine that traditional German cars are at one end of the scale and the Maserati Quattroporte is at the other end, we want to be in the middle," he says.
Prior concludes: "I struggle to think of much to criticise and feel desperately sycophantic when Cross asks what I honestly think about the car.
"Honestly? The ride feels right. Noise levels are right. The looks? Right enough for me. Cabin design? Maybe, just maybe, I was a smidgen underwhelmed when I first got in it, because there isn't the in-your-face sparkle and delight of the XF. But I find that, like the exterior, it's a grower."
Read the full story of the Jaguar XJ drive in this week's Autocar magazine.
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I can not wait for it to come
Re: On road in the Jaguar XJ
Oh, c'est tres la antipode, clowns!
You betray the feeble-minded delusions of the type of person who has commonly been told to like this car by the blather surrounding it. You have no judgement. You are aspirant snobs without the finances to be truly sick-making in real life; without the ability to use your driveway to have your inadequacies veiled to the eyes of your suburban neighbours by a brand. You are dull and uber-suburban, and only the dull of mind and wonky of eye listen to and absorb Callum's defensive gloss about this car's styling without seeing it for what it is.
When Callum says it's a car for designers, the cynical undertone unidentified by people like you is that he has had to compromise the aesthetics, he knows it, and he leaves his cant deliberately obscure to intimidate the vulnerable, floundering consumer into imbuing qualities through faith and not visible substance.
People like you may one day be capable of buying one, probably through an horrific Jaguar credit regime, and you will own a car that you will enjoy driving. However, due to the terrible mistake of the rear-end design, your discerning acquaintances will only take pleasure in seeing it leaving for one reason.
Re: On road in the Jaguar XJ
Point well made.