By: IOL Motoring Staff
London - As sneak previews go, it was a stunner. On Tuesday stunt driver Jim Dowdall, veteran of Hollywood movies including Bond, Bourne and Indiana Jones, drove the all-new Jaguar XF 240 metres across a high-wire, high over the Royal Dock in London's Canary Wharf.
The idea, according to Jaguar, was to demonstrate the new model's lightweight aluminium-intensive construction, which it claims is 80kg lighter than its closest competitor.
The new bodyshell is 75 percent aluminium, making this XF up to 190kg lighter than its predecessor, depending on the model, and enables some clever repackaging, making the car 7mm shorter (although it looks longer) and 3mm lower than the previous XF - but on a 51mm longer wheelbase, all of it behind the B pillar to provide extra stretch room for rear passengers.
Available from launch will be two versions of the two-litre Ingenium turbodiesel, a new three-litre twin-turbo diesel V6 and the F-Type's renowned three-litre supercharged petrol V6, in this application tuned for 280kW and 450Nm.
CHALLENGING THE DIVAS
They're due to launch a frontal attack on the acknowledged divas of the mid-sized premium sedan segment in South Africa, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and the BMW 5 Series, early in 2016.
The two-litre base model oil-burner is rated at a conservative 120kW and 380Nm, but in this format Jaguar quotes nominal fuel consumption of less than four litres per 100km and emissions of 104g/km - which the maker claims as the lowest for any non-hybrid in
The Ingenium-powered XF will also be offered with a more muscular mapping delivering a quoted 133kW and 430Nm, in each case mated to either a six-speed manual or eight-speed auto transmission.
Each of the two V6s is matched exclusively to an eight-speed auto which, in the case of the biturbodiesel, channels a quoted 280kW and 700Nm to the rear wheels.
All of which is laid down by double-wishbone front and multilink rear suspension, modulated by electric power-assisted steering and (optional) adaptive damping and configurable dynamics, allowing you to tailor the steering, damper, engine and eight-speed automatic transmission settings individually.
SCANDINAVIAN SIMPLICITY
As always from Castle Bromwich, the cabin is meticulously tailored in contrast-stitched leather, but the traditional walnut veneer gives way to faux fibre, gloss piano black and satin chrome trim in a layout almost Swedish in its simplicity - deliberately so, according to designer Ian Callum.
It houses a 12.3-inch reconfigurable TFT instrument cluster - first seen on the XJ - and a new 10.2-inch touch-screen infotainment portal with dual view, which allows the driver to front passenger to see different displays
The mini-prism technology is derived from children's toys of thirty years ago (I have one on my desk as I type) but in this application it's startlingly effective.
The displays are driven by a quad-core processor and a solid-state drive - equivalent to a top-of-the-range laptop - and a new operating system called InControl Pro, to deliver crisp graphics and ultrafast response times for either videos or satnav - or both simultaneously! - while surrounding the occupants with 825 watts of digital sound from 17 speakers.