Jaguar XF SportBrake at Geneva and NO 4WD?

Jaguar XF SportBrake - Geneva 2012 debut?

As we reported last week, Jaguar has started the countdown to the debut of the XF Sportbrake – the new Jaguar XF Estate – with some ‘official’ spy shots and a new @sportbrake Twitter account. But that’s it.

Jaguar are remaining tight-lipped for now about details, although when we spoke to them after the Sportbrake pictures arrived last week they did tell us there would be official details in the New Year.

Despite that, Teamspeed are reporting that they’ve talked to Jaguar in the US and they are confirming that the XF SportBrake is heading for a debut at the Geneva Motor Show in the Spring of 2012, and that it will not get a 4WD option.

So we picked up the ‘phone to Jaguar, but they are adamant the Geneva and 4WD information hasn’t come from them, and that they will confirm nothing until the New Year. But it does all add up.

Geneva is perhaps the biggest car show of the year and Jaguar will want something good to debut. The XF SportBrake fits that bill and, with the tease already started, the timing is right.

As far as the four wheel drive platform for the XF Sportbrake is concerned, we’ve already said we can’t see that happening until the next generation XF arrives in a few years time.

Despite looks and style that transformed the XF in to a very desirable, luxury sports saloon, the XF is pretty much an S-Type under the skin. Which means it’s highly unlikely Jaguar would go as far as to build a new platform just for the last two years of the current XF’s life.

But when the next XF arrives it will be underpinned by an aluminium platform closely related to platforms from Land Rover’s next generation of cars (which will start to arrive in the next year or so), meaning we should see a 4WD XF Sportbrake – and saloon – in two or three years time.

So we buy Teamspeed’s story.