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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

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