It’s been only two days since the launch of the all-new Jaguar XF, Britain’s answer to the likes of the BMW 5 Series, Audi A6 and Mercedes E-Class. However, the Jag raises a few questions of its own.
Such as, why in the world does it look more like a facelifted version of the 1st generation XF? – which had already received a facelift a couple of years ago. It looks like a facelift for the “facelift”.
Another question would sound pretty much the same except it would include the smaller Jaguar XE. But let’s use our outside voice and phrase it anyway: Why in the world does the all-new XF look like a bigger version of the recently launched XE?
And it does, it really really does, especially looking at it from a rear 3/4 angle or directly from behind.
Of course, we could try to be more “German” about it and rationalize it as something that simply makes sense for the life-span of the model, just like how the BMW 3 Series looks like a smaller 5 Series and the Audi..OK you know what? That’s not even true! The 3 Series may look similar to a 5er from a distance, but their bodies clearly have different design lines which help your eyes differentiate between the two models with relative ease.
Does this mean I think the all-new XF is a bad looking car? No, not at all. In fact I think it looks great, even better than the old one and even better than the smaller XE. I just feel like they didn’t make as big an effort as maybe they should have in order to make sure the taillights look drastically different, do something about the front end so as to not look as much like the old model and so on.
Even the interior looks uninspiring, despite the fact that in and of itself, I like it a lot.
And to also touch on what Jaguar design boss Ian Callum said, specifically when he stated that “In creating the all-new XF, as a design team we have been driven by discipline, the discipline of simplicity. Every exterior line on the XF has a clear purpose – nothing is superfluous.“
Oh? Is that how you approached the F-Type design as well? Yeah, we think not.
Still, it’s great to see the car in motion because it does look like it’s ready to bite the road ahead at any moment thanks to the hood and headlight design which give it a nice scowl.