Jaguar XF Sportbrake NOT going to the U.S. - NO V8, no 4WD

Jaguar XF Sportbrake - not going to the US

The new Jaguar XF Sportbrake – revealed yesterday and heading for Geneva – will not be sold in the U.S. and there will be no V8 or 4WD versions.

We finally got the reaveal of the Jaguar XF Sportbrake yesterday after months of tease, and a good-looking, well thought out estate it seems to be.

But sadly, and fairly predictably, Jaguar has confirmed that the XF Sportbrake won’t make it to the other side of the Pond, with no plans to sell the Sportbrake in America. Which is no big surprise.

Outside proper petrolheads (sorry, gearheads) there is no passion in the States for ‘Wagons’, particularly ‘Premium Wagons’. And with Jaguar deciding the only engines they will offer in the Sportbrake will be the two diesel lumps in three flavours – 3.0 litre diesel, 3.0 litre Diesel S and 2.2 Diesel – the Sportbrake would go down like a lead balloon in the States.

But Jaguar are considering selling the Sportbrake outside Europe – although Europe is its key target, with the hope that 20 per cent of XF sales will be the new Sportbrake – but even then they will only be offering diesel-engined Sportbrakes.

Jaguar has said they will not be putting a V8 engine in the Sportbrake – either naturally aspirated or Supercharged – and there will be no 4WD platform for the XF. Which isn’t really a surprise.

We had hoped that Jaguar would give us an XFR Sportbrake (especially with Ian Callum on record as saying there would be an XFR Sportbrake), but as they’ve always said that the XF Estate wasn’t viable without a 4WD platform it’s no surprise they don’t want to take on cars like the RS6 Avant without the benefit of a 4WD platform to compete properly at the high-end.

But fear not, Jaguar are working on a 4WD platform for the next generation XF (which is a couple of years away) by which time we would hope they would build not just 4WD Diesel Sportbrakes but perhaps even a 4WD XFR-S Sportbrake to give Audi, BMW and Mercedes something to worry about.