Jaguar XJR
Flagship now puts out 567bhp from a supercharged 5.0-litre V8 as part of a wider XJ revamp, but is it a match for an S-class?
Raucous supercharged super-saloon
buyers do. But there’s also a 3.0-litre supercharged V6 petrol, which can be had in rear drive or with all-wheel drive (AWD). Then there’s the 5.0-litre V8 petrol, which is itself available in three different versions. There’s one with 464bhp, another with 503bhp, and then there’s the full-fat XJR 575, which now has 567bhp (575PS), rather than 542bhp. And all of these can be had in standard or long-wheelbase styles.
Because the XJR is the only one in the range to have received a power increase, that seems like the most suitable car on which to base our review of the 2018-model-year car. No other reason at all. Definitely not that it also has the ability to smoke up its tyres at will, and that this sounds like a giggle. No, no.
But first, some other details. All rear-driven XJS receive electric rather than hydraulic power steering (although the AWD retains a hydraulic rack), there’s a new, 10.0in touchscreen in the middle of the dashboard, and around all of that comes updated software, plus some new technological and active safety features like lane keeping and parking assist (hence the electric steering), city braking and radar cruise that can take you to and from a standstill. The sort of thing that’s like introducing Frank Sinatra to an auto-tune. Obviously, it can be done, but why would you?
Because the nice thing about the XJ has always been that it is wilfully different from the Germany luxury car club. I can feel people at Bentley wincing at the word ‘luxury’ even as I type it. An S-class isn’t luxury, they’re thinking, because nobody hangs off a cliff on guide ropes to cut burrs from an incredibly rare tree so they can use them for veneer. They don’t do that at Jaguar, either, but the word ‘luxury’ feels less dirty in relation to an XJ than it does to an S-class or an Audi A8, even though, in fact, it’s less luxurious – if you’re counting toys – than both.
Why is that? It isn’t the perceived quality, because there’s nothing in an S-class that has anything remotely to fear from an XJ’S interior. And, like I say, it certainly isn’t that the XJ has more buttons or is more advanced. But there is something, and I’m not sure it’s solely the fact that it’s rarer.
Maybe it’s design. The Jaguar is an attractive car inside and out. Mostly out, but it’s swishy around the dash top, too. But perhaps it’s because it also feels a little more old school in its charm. It’s like it’s a bit more involving, a bit more engaging, a bit more personal. If I had to pick a car in this class that felt most like a Rollsroyce Phantom, a car that is the very epitome of luxury, I suppose it would be the XJ. Although I can’t yet pinpoint why. Maybe you can’t define it. Or maybe, like Instagram, I just don’t understand it.
Still, let’s start with the rear seats. They’re good. In the long-wheelbase XJ, where rear leg room is excellent, Jaguar says they are ‘airline-style’ individual chairs, which move and wotnot. Very comfy, too. Personally, I’d ditch the term ‘airline’ next time around because having to have your shampoo X-rayed before and
paying £4.75 for an M&S bacon roll leaves the word feeling less glamorous than it used to be. For a short-haul flight, sign me up to the back of an XJ every time.
But it’s the front seat where my – and, I suspect, your – real interest lies. It is in driving where the XJ range in general and the XJR in particular remain the most endearing luxury-class car of all.
Even with electric assistance, it still steers. I’ll admit it has been a good couple of years since I drove an XJ so I can’t tell you whether it is better or worse now than it was before, but it’s certainly still oily smooth and pleasingly weighted, with the right amount of selfcentring. There’s nothing else in the class quite this good.
Likewise, it has a remarkable deftness to its ride quality. Its ability to soothe bumps is superior to all but the most pillowy versions of the S-class and yet it retains control of its 1875kg body. Design and dynamics: that’s what Jaguar seems to get right, every time.
The engine and ’box combo is rather good, too. All that has liberated the extra 25bhp is a change to the ECU, so it remains a terrific-sounding, mellow, yet linearly responsive engine that shifts smoothly and smokes its rear tyres with ease; not that anybody ever will away from a Middle Eastern or Russian highway. It can’t go on forever, can it, a powertrain like this? A 5.0-litre supercharged donkey with 567bhp but 25.5mpg and 264g/km? We saw about 18mpg, by the way. I suppose it will, for a long while yet, in some parts of the world, but it’s starting to feel out of kilter – albeit wonderfully, bassfully out of kilter – with northern Europe.
Which leaves the XJR where, exactly? A bit old fashioned, and a bit old school? Perhaps. Is it as techladen as an S-class or the latest A8? Is it heck. Is it as crushingly capable as a Porsche Panamera? Could it wrestle a live rhino to the ground like a BMW 760Li? I shouldn’t imagine so for a second. For all of these reasons and more, I couldn’t bring myself to give the XJ any more than four stars. But I also don’t think it matters that much, which is why I’d recommend one in a second.