Think of a popular luxurious estate car and chances are you’re going to think of a BMW, an Audi, or a Mercedes Benz, and that’s understandable. You would be right to think of a German car because since pretty much forever, our German friends have been making the smartest, most powerful and in my opinion best looking estate cars seen on the roads today. But isn’t it about time that Germany stopped having all the fun with the sexy estates? It now looks as if the Brits might be fighting back and judging by the XF Sportbrake, I think we’re going to be doing a proper job of it too.
The XF Sportbrake is a new model from Jaguar planning to be launched later this year and the first estate model to roll out off the Jaguar production line since the X-Type which first appeared back in 2004.
I don’t think I’m getting carried away if I say that the bold body and sleek lines on the XF Sportbrake make it a pretty sexy car, and it’s practical too. With the seats folded flat we’re looking at a staggering storage capacity of 1675 litres and what’s really clever is the overall size of the car. The underpinnings of the sportbrake are pretty much identical to that of the Saloon model but yet the Sportback is just 5mm longer and only 70 kilos heavier. All this is to be powered by either a 2.2 litre 4 cylinder or 3.0 litre 6 cylinder diesel lump driving the power to the rear wheels via an 8 speed auto box.
We can expect to see the release of the Sportbrake in the late summer along with detailed prices and full specifications. For a first glance I think this is pretty exciting, I’m really looking forward to seeing one in the flesh and more importantly seeing how it ranks against its German competitors.
// John Marcar
