Ever since Ford took over Jaguar, purists have been scrutinizing every move the company makes in an effort to turn up some evidence of Fording down" the illustrious British marque. The fact that the X-Type has a common ancestry with Ford's front-wheel-drive Mondeo (similar to the Contour sold in North America) really got their ears up. Can you imagine a front-wheel-drive Jaguar? No, and those dyed-in-the-green types at Jaguar couldn't either. Thus the X-Type has all-wheel drive - a happy state that would probably not have come about had designers started with a clean sheet of paper. In reality, only about 20 percent of the X-Type has any connection to the Mondeo.The X-Type is clearly a Jaguar, which will delight Jaguar's many female fans. If anything, the X-Type might be a little too self-conscious in staking out its claim to Jaguarness with its abundance of family cues. It might clutter your vision at first look. The X-Type's appearance is more like the lordly XJ than the more retro S-Type, which was Jaguar's first (and successful) effort to broaden its customer base.The problem facing the X-Type designers: Make a relatively short car look low and long. And by golly they did it, using lots of horizontal lines, body sculpting and a high-tailed wedge shape, though the wedge is more obvious in photographs than in person. Though the X-type is some seven inches shorter than the S-Type, the illusion is generally successful. It looks big on the road.The front view is broadened with two sets of side-by-side round lights flanking Jaguar's traditional horizontal split grille. The design of the grille and headlamps with fluting that sweeps back over the hood make the X-Type look like a baby XJ. It looks more conservative than the S-Type with its unique round grille. This aspect of the X-Type looks particularly auspicious when seen in a rearview mirror. Riding the hood is the traditional bounding Jaguar known as the "leaper." (Such hood ornaments are outlawed in Europe, so the X-Types there will make do with the flat, full-faced Jaguar known as the "growler.")The visual stance of the X-Type is not affected by the all-wheel-drive system. This is a ground-loving vehicle that makes the eye believe it is longer and lower than it is and bigger as well. What seemed to me at first to be a busy-ness about the indents, many horizontal lines and visual cues of Jaguarness faded with on-going exposure into acceptance and even appreciation. Anyway, the car looks better on the road than it does in a showroom. Or in pictures. Moral: don't cling overlong to first impressions."
© 1997 -
2009
Jump Internet Inc. All rights reserved.
