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BARRY HAYDEN<br />
YOU’LL SWEAR THE new Jaguar<br />
XF is longer than its predecessor:<br />
that tiny front overhang, the feature<br />
line that visually elongates the body,<br />
the boot that dangles beyond the<br />
rear axle like a cliff-hanging Italian Job bus. All of<br />
it makes the new XF appear a long car. It is quite<br />
long at 4954mm, but it’s actually 7mm shorter<br />
than the outgoing model, 3mm lower too.<br />
If you’ve ever sat in the back of the old XF,<br />
fashioning a new one to be shorter and lower<br />
wouldn’t be top of your wish-list: the rakish roof<br />
made it more cramped for rear-seat passengers<br />
than 5-series, E-class and A6 rivals. Yet sit in the<br />
back of the new model and you’ll find plenty of<br />
legroom – a class-leading 15mm more than before,<br />
claims Jag, courtesy of a wheelbase stretched 51mm<br />
to 2960mm –more headroom than a blue-sky<br />
meeting, and a view out of the windscreen that’s<br />
far less claustrophobic. There’s a big boot too,<br />
though at 540 litres it’s no larger than before; that<br />
7mm has to come from somewhere.<br />
So, new XF looks bigger, is actually smaller,<br />
but has more room inside. It’s the kind of packaging<br />
voodoo made possible only with an all-new car,<br />
and XF marks the second appearance of Jaguar’s<br />
scalable aluminium-intensive architecture. Just<br />
like one-segment-down XE before it, there’s<br />
double-wishbone front suspension, a multi-link<br />
‘Integral Link’ rear axle and a body split<br />
approximately 75/25% aluminium to steel, where<br />
the old model was 100% steel.<br />
This familiarity, together with the matryoshkadoll<br />
design, is strategic: Jag is pooling its cars on<br />
a common platform to boost economies of scale<br />
(the F-Pace SUV is spun off it too), and is sticking<br />
with a common design language to establish<br />
modern Jaguar on the world stage. But if you’re in<br />
the market for this car, that background doesn’t<br />
make it a less exciting prospect.<br />
You sit low in seats that are supportive if on<br />
the firm side of comfortable, and when you press<br />
JAGUAR XF<br />
Haven’t we<br />
met before?<br />
Jaguar channels Audi’s ‘all models look alike’<br />
strategy with an XF that looks like an XE…<br />
but with proper room in the back<br />
<strong>September</strong> 2015 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 39