2. It’ll pack box-fresh engines
It’s not just the chassis that’s all-new: Jaguar are kicking their habit of using Ford engines, and going it alone with a new Rs 5,000 crore-plus plant in Wolverhampton (above). The 7,75,000-sq-ft factory is being fitted out and 1,400 jobs created to build all-new turbocharged diesel and petrol engines. The first of these four-pots comes down the line this spring. ‘It’s a brand-new engine architecture: we start with diesel and petrol 2.0-litre fours,’ says our source. ‘And it’s modular, so it could go to three- or six-cylinders over time.’ The XE will be the first car to adopt the engines, which will be mounted inline and send drive to the rear wheels, via a six-speed Getrag manual or eight-cog ZF auto. The engines, which will be rolled out across Jaguar and Land Rover, will deliver the low-down torque, vital for both sporty and off-road performance.
3. It’s striving for class-leading efficiency. BMW, beware!
Jaguar’s Adrian Hallmark has already talked up XE’s efficiency potential, but he knows that the benchmark it has to beat is BMW’s EfficientDynamics 3 Series. This 320d runs a 163 PS 2.0-litre diesel, which emits 109 g/km of CO2 and returns 24.4 km/l. Will Jaguar throttle the car’s performance to hit the numbers? ‘We’re not talking 14 sec 0-100 km/h, this is a 170-PS car!’ joked our mole. ‘But we are aiming for the lowest emission in class, with a 99 g/km car or below at launch.’
This model should help convince fleet managers and business users to offer the Jaguar – a vital step for home-grown success, with company cars accounting for more than 50 per cent of UK car registrations.
4. There’ll be a 550-PS R model
Thankfully, the XE can’t just be about hair-shirt economy if it’s to deliver on Hallmark’s 300 km/h promise. ‘Performance will always be at the heart of Jaguar,’ claims our insider. So Jaguar will offer the 340 PS supercharged V6 petrol from the F-type, which should be good for a sub-5.5 second 0-100 km/h sprint.
And a flagship R model is definitely in the pipeline. While BMW have downsized the next M3/M4 engine to a 431-PS six-cylinder turbo, Jaguar are determined to stick to V8 firepower. ‘We have the 550-PS V8 from the F-type R Coupé, and we can push on a bit from there. With a light-weight aluminium architecture and 550 PS, imagine what that would be like!’
The R saloon would also employ an electronically controlled differential to help put all that power down, frequently in a lurid sideways direction, we imagine!
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