2002 Jaguar X-Type Review
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Ever since Ford took over Jaguar, purists have been scrutinizing every move the company makes in an effort to turn up some evidence of quot;Fording downquot; 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 quot;leaper.quot; (Such hood ornaments are outlawed in Europe, so the X-Types there will make do with the flat, full-faced Jaguar known as the quot;growler.quot;) 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.
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