Thursday 30 December 2010

Jaguar XJL – Go on, Dad, buy one!

The new supercharged Jaguar is awesome. Not in a sexy way. I mean, it is sexy, well, no not sexy. Sexy is a word for the Zonda or Ferrari 458 – it does things to you without you touching yourself, er, and ‘sexy’ and ‘Dad’ should not be associated.

I’ve always associated Jaguars with old men, which was no doubt emotionally enforced when the white-haired Inspector Morse got into that beautiful Mk II Jaguar – yeah, the one I always wanted as my first car. “Dream on,” Daddy said, understandably.

The XJL doesn’t perform like a Dad car. In fact, it’s pretty nippy, And the semi-automatic version left me surprised. Dropping it down to 1 manually with the flappy paddles, as advised by My Stig, made leaving the lights a lot of fun - stunning given the size of the car. It was less ‘Granddad’ and definitely more executive-style ‘Dad’. So much so, that I’m dying for my Dad to get one. He’d love it, the comfort of the electronically adjustable seats will look after the bones that don’t feel like they used to, while sports-mode will remind him of how young he still is.

The digital speedometer and electronic handbrake were marks of wizardry that made my little face light up and the rear-facing camera, which fed into the touchscreen sat nav system, allowed you to see exactly where the car was tracking to, great news for a girl who admits she struggles to park. Hey! How was I to know what six inches REALLY looked like?!