Jaguar World Monthly Magazine

4 November 2014

The first thing that struck me when I glanced down the XE’s newly revealed price list was the amount of choice. Even by today’s mainstream manufacturers’ standards, there is a lot for one car – 22 different models, in fact. One of Jaguar’s important plans for the future was to increase choice. To do this, it has invested in the amount of engines and platforms it has to choose from, thus lowering development costs and allowing it to produce more cars more easily. The XE is arguably the first result of that plan. In a break from the past, when every car used a different floorplan, the XE’s basic architecture will be the basis for the C-X17 SUV, plus any number of future JLR products. The same goes for the engines – the XE will have the choice of three petrol and two diesel. While the 3.0 petrol is already seen throughout Jaguar’s range, the XE is the first to use Jaguar’s new Ingenium 2.0 engines, but these, too, will be used in both current and future cars. I reckon there are more to come. The V6 diesel was conspicuous by its absence in the XE’s price list, yet what a bahnstormer that would be. There are rumours of an eventual V8 500PS XER and even a 550PS XER-S. The latter might sound a flight of fancy, but so did an XF estate with the same engine only 12 months ago. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Jaguar recently, it’s that the engineers aren’t afraid to use whatever is available to extend a product line-up, creating some interesting variants – a fact that will be solidly confirmed if the rumoured F-TYPE 2.0 turbo ever sees the light of day. Jaguar has a long way to go before it joins the likes of BMW (with 15 cars in its line-up), but thanks to some clever thinking and forward planning, it’s getting there.