Jaguar XJ Diesel – The Swansong plaudit

The current Jaguar XJ is very close to the end of its life. A great car, but one that never captured the hearts and minds of today’s luxury car buyer to the degree Jaguar would like. And much of that revolves around the perception of Jaguars as ‘Old Man Cars’.

And although one of the strengths of Jaguar has been its heritage it has, to a degree, also become its Achilles Heel. The first Jaguar XJs were a triumph when they were launched in 1968, and put Jaguar leaps and bounds ahead of the German competition, in the same way Jaguar had taken the world by storm with the E-Type a few years before.

But things started to fall apart for Jaguar in the ’70s with the fiasco that was British Leyland, and by trying to emulate Porsche by making each iteration of the XJ an evolution of the original all they managed to do was cement in the public mindset the failings of the XJ.

So however good the XJ became – and in many ways it is a very good car – it could never be cool or desirable enough for most buyers. But that’s should be about to change in a major way with the launch of the new Jaguar XJ on 9th July, something we’re really looking forward to after suffering the endless tease that has been the new Jaguar XJ’s prelude.

But it’s great to give the old XJ a final plaudit by reporting that it has won the ‘Greenest Luxury Car Award‘ – for the third year running – for the Jaguar XJ 2.7 Diesel. This is the same car you may remember JC driving from Basel to Blackpool on a single tank of fuel, trying desperately to run out of fuel close to home by cruising at 80mph with the Air Con on full, but which astonished both him and us by making it to Blackpool with, apparently, enough diesel left to cover another 150 miles.

So if this is how good the existing XJ Diesel is, just imagine what we can expect from the new XJ including, it would seem, a Jaguar XJ Hybrid.

Well done, Jaguar. Bring on the new one!