AUTO SHOWS: First Look: Jaguar XF Sportbrake

We have previously seen leaked photos, Twitter images, and Christmas-themed teasers, but now it's time to see the Jaguar XF Sportbrake in all its glory. The British automaker revealed these photos of its newest station wagon, which will make its official debut next week at the Geneva Motor Show.

Though the front of the car looks just like a regular Jaguar XF, the company confirms that every body part aft of the B-pillar is new or unique to the Sportbrake. Even so, the XF Sportbrake is only 0.2 inch longer than its sedan forbear, and weighs only 154 pounds more than the sedan. Rear-seat passengers also enjoy an extra 1.9 inches of headroom compared to in the four-door.

The Sportbrake's razor-straight beltline leads to a rounded tail, with an elegant curved spoiler, and a roofline that tapers down after the C-pillar. The taillights, partially bisected by a chrome trim strip that spans the width of the liftgate, are nearly identical to those on the regular Jaguar XF. The cargo area features an underfloor storage system with three compartments to hold smaller items, a soft-close feature for the liftgate, LED illumination, and remote levers to make folding the rear seats easier.

Cargo capacity with the rear seats in place is 19.4 cubic feet, up from 17.7 in the sedan, while folding the seats provides an ample 59.2 cubic feet of storage. Most of the rear chassis is common between the XF Sportbrake and the sedan version, although the wagon has self-leveling air suspension to cope with extra loading while also providing sporty handling. Jaguar also says the XF Sportbrake will be "an accomplished tow vehicle."

The European version of the car will be powered by either a 187-hp turbodiesel 2.2-liter inline-four, or a 271-hp turbodiesel 3.0-liter V-6. An eight-speed automatic transmission with rear-wheel drive is standard. The Jaguar XF Sportbrake makes its official debut in Geneva before going on sale in Europe in the third quarter of this year.

Read more: http://www.automobilemag.com/auto_shows/geneva/2012/1203_jaguar_xf_sportbrake/index.html#ixzz1owLJzmc3

Land Rover Range Rover Evoque Convertible Concept

We've come a long way from the cloth-top Defender. 

Many people thought the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet was a fluke, but it could actually signal the beginning of a crossover convertible trend. Land Rover is using the Geneva auto show to roll out a droptop Evoque concept. Rendered in a charcoal hue with 21-inch wheels and a two-tone, ivory-and-gray four-seat interior, the right-hand-drive Range Rover concept can be seen as the masculine yang to Nissan’s feminine yin.

The Evoque convertible concept is based on the Evoque coupe (i.e., the three-door version) and features a fabric top, a drop-down tailgate, pop-up rollover protection, and, of course, Land Rover’s Terrain Response system. The concept also includes an eight-inch touch screen in the center stack, a Meridian audio system, and surround-view cameras.

Land Rover claims that the roof-ectomy was achieved with “minimal changes to weight and torsional rigidity,” both big challenges for chop jobs like this. Most companies wouldn’t make those points about something they didn’t plan to actually produce. Indeed, close inspection of the car reveals details that suggest this is less a concept car than a production-intent prototype, including flaps ahead of the tonneau cover to accommodate the top structure, front-seatbelt anchor points, and even the split-folding rear seatback. Certainly, it is further developed than the DC100 concepts that Land Rover has been floating around recently.

Read More: http://www.caranddriver.com/news/land-rover-range-rover-evoque-convertible-concept-news

Chicago Land Rover 

2012 Annual Auto Issue: The most fun to drive cars for 2012

We all want a car to be safe, reliable, and perform well, but since we all spend too much time behind the wheel (and making payments!), it might as well be fun to drive, too. Our automotive engineers have combined their test data and notes to come up with the cars they have found to be the most fun to drive.

Of course, “fun to drive” is a somewhat subjective measure—an elusive quality that can mean different things to different people. From our experience, a car can have a very powerful engine and accelerate quickly, but without handling agility, it's not much fun.

For us, fun is a combination of factors—such as handling response, sound, and the nature of the power delivery—that lead to grin-inducing satisfaction. To come up with our list of the most fun cars to drive, we first took a slice according to our scores for handling, steering feel, and body control. Then we looked at acceleration, but found most cars today have plenty of power. Of course, a weak link in the fun chain, such as a poor shifter, would be counted against a candidate. Finally, we took a secret ballot to give our testers a chance to capture those elusive subjective qualities, including sounds and overall engagement.

Below is the list of the Jaguars we consider the most fun to drive.

Category	Most fun
Convertibles	Jaguar XK
Luxury sedans	Jaguar XJ

Look for the 2012 Annual Auto Issue of Consumer Reports to be posted online midday Tuesday, February 28th.

Read More: http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2012/02/2012-annual-auto-issue-the-most-fun-to-drive-cars-for-2012.html

Jaguar Considering Track-Focused Special-Edition XKR-S Coupe

Jaguar is considering building a handful of special-edition XKR-S coupes—of course, with just 100 of the super coupes being built each of the next three years, the “non-special” car already will be a rare sight.

Frank Klaas, Jaguar’s global head of communications who describes the XKR-S as an “ambassador of the brand,” said that the proposed special-edition model would appeal to the guy who wants to drive to the track, lap or race to his heart’s content, and drive home. As such, the car might lose its rear seats and gain lighter stereo and HVAC units for the touch-screen-based systems, hard-core racing seats, a fire-suppression system, unique gauges, and track-focused aero addenda. A roll cage may or may not be part of the package, depending on the markets in which the car is sold. (If the examples of various track-ready Porsche 911s are anything to go by, ours would be one of the markets to do without the cage.)



As with the standard XKR-S, this variant—which could be named after the Nürburgring, where production-grade XKR-S models have allegedly posted sub-eight-minute lap times—would be built by Jaguar’s in-house Engineered To Order (ETO) group. (If the XKR-S is an ambassador for the brand, consider ETO the consulate. Klaas promises that the ETO team, which quietly fulfills requests for bespoke cars for high-value customers, will play a more prominent role in Jaguar marketing in the future.)

We weren’t told whether the special-edition coupes would add to the annual 100-car XKR-S allotment, but Klaas did say that a harder-core version of the convertible is not being considered at this point. Watch for a vehicle to be floated out to gauge interest at either next month’s Geneva auto show, or, more likely, the Paris auto show in the fall.

Read More: http://blog.caranddriver.com/jaguar-considering-track-focused-special-edition-xkr-s-coupe/

Jaguar Dealers

Range_e Plug-in Hybrid Prototype: First Drive Report

At the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, Land Rover unveiled its first ever plug-in hybrid concept vehicle, the Land Rover Range_e Diesel Plug-in Hybrid.

Then in October last year -- purely by chance -- we bumped into one of Land Rover’s five engineering test Range_e prototypes in a shopping mall parking lot the weekend before it was due to take part in the annual RAC Green Car Challenge from Brighton to London, U.K.

Like the rest of the automotive press however, we had to wait until last Friday to get behind the wheel at a special Land Rover Jaguar joint press day.

Regular Range Rover Sport -- With A Plug

From a distance, the Range_e plug-in hybrid prototype looks identical to the 2011 Range Rover Sport.
Get closer, and it becomes obvious that the Range_e isn’t just another gas-guzzling SUV.

On the rear right quarter panel, there’s the usual fuel filler flap -- but move to the

Read More: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1072440_range-e-plug-in-hybrid-prototype-first-drive-report

By Design: Land Rover DC100 Sport

As a designer, Gerry McGovern is rather like American muscle cars of yore: neither handles curves too well, but give them a straight line and there's no catching them. His MGF roadster and various Lincoln concepts were less than convincing, but his multiple off-road designs have been outstanding. From the highly successful Land Rover Freelander -- Europe's four-by-four best-seller from 1997 to 2002 -- to the terrific Range Rover Evoque, his Land Rover designs are winners. His grasp of how to modulate the surfaces of a box-shaped mass to make it attractive eludes most designers.

There was never any styling per se on the original Land Rovers. Their bodies were made of aluminum sheet that was bent and riveted without the benefit of compound-curved stampings. The first one was built on a Willys Jeep frame with Rover passenger-car engines and components. Two 80-inch-wheelbase prototypes were shown at the 1948 Amsterdam motor show, and the basic design has been a success ever since, with successive models having longer wheelbases: 86 and 107 inches in 1954, a two-inch increase in 1956, and another two inches for the short one and an inch for the longer model in the 1980s.

Land Rover has been owned by various entities, including Rover (of course), British Leyland, British Aerospace, BMW, Ford, and now Tata, a longtime purveyor of four-by-four cars of even less refinement than the 1948 Land Rover. It's a good match, however, probably much better than any of the previous proprietors. Two DC100 concepts were shown at Frankfurt, one a closed vehicle probably much like what will be built in series production in a few years, the other this Sport version, a fairly silly and impractical pure show car. Two seats only, a rollover structure that takes up far too much interior room, and a nearly frameless windshield top are all frivolous "entertainment" elements. But I'll be surprised if a successor to the Defender were not made available as a completely open model with a properly framed windshield and at least four seats.

Read more: http://www.automobilemag.com/features/by_design/1202_by_design_land_rover_dc100_sport/viewall.html#ixzz1kfsCf98T

Range Rover Evoque Wins North American Truck of the Year: Detroit Auto Show 2012

There probably weren’t too many surprises on this one. Since it’s introduction, the ‘baby’ Range has been making waves in the luxury SUV field, augmented by awards left right and center.

Although it faced fairly stiff competition from the updated 2012 version of Honda’s popular CR-V and the latest BMW X3, in terms of design and engineering, the Evoque was judged the overall winner in the 19th annual North American Truck of the Year awards, which took place on January 9th at Cobo Hall in Detroit, just prior to the opening of this year’s North American International Auto Show.

This represents the third time that a European branded vehicle has won the title, the last was back 2003 when the Volvo XC 90 took the honors. Interestingly, the only other European SUV to ever win North American Truck of the Year was the first generation Mercedes ML back in 1998, recognized as a game changer in the segment, much as the Evoque is today.

The North American Car and Truck of the Year awards are administered by a group of 50 automotive journalists from both the US and Canada, with the awards financed entirely by member dues (no advertising or commercial support for automakers or auto related businesses is accepted).

Read More: http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2012/01/range-rover-evoque-wins-north-american-truck-of-the-year-detroit-auto-show-2012.html

Chicago Land Rover