What Could Possibly Go Wrong...

Oh, grunting frump, you looked so fine on the catwalk ^{Jaguar XF 2.2 Diesel Premium Luxury}

Back in 1995, Ford toured the world, showing off an exciting new concept car – a small two-seat roadster that was made from carbon fibre. Yum, yum, we all thought. We shall be very interested in buying that should the bigwigs in Detroit decide to put it into production.

Sadly, though, by the time it reached the showrooms, it had sprouted a roof, a hatchback and acres of pleblon upholstery. Furthermore, it was made from steel instead of carbon fibre and it looked like a teapot. It was called the Ka.

Ten years later Ford did it again, showing us a fantastic-looking concept called Iosis. It said at the time that the next version of the Mondeo would look very similar. And it did, except for every single detail.

This is the trouble with concept cars. They do not have to adhere to pesky EU rules about how high the headlamps must be from the ground and how much of the tyres’ width must be covered by bodywork. They don’t have to be crash-tested, and neither does every single piece have to pass through the company’s accounts department. They are freestyle cars. Flights of fancy.

They don’t even have to work. Many years ago Peugeot turned up at the British motor show with a concept car that looked like a cross between an America’s Cup catamaran, the glider Pierce Brosnan used in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair and a sex toy. However, on the downside, it didn’t have an engine. It didn’t even have a space where an engine could go.

In recent times concept cars have started to look a bit more like the cars you and I do buy. But even so, all of the little details – the fat tyres and the funky lighting and the weird door handles – are still rejected by the bean counters for being too expensive, or by the production line manager for being too complex to fit. This means the car that finally makes it to the showroom never looks quite as good as the car that appeared under a sea of girly flesh at a motor show. Concept cars, then, are the font of disappointment.

By far the worst offender in this is Jaguar. Almost without exception, every one of its new cars in recent times has been a shoulder-sagging visual let-down because, just before it was unveiled, the company had produced a concept to show how brilliant it could have looked if only there were no rules. In short, Jag’s designers have spent the past twenty years writing cheques that the rest of the company cannot cash.

However, a couple of weeks ago Jaguar unveiled a concept car called the C-X16, and if you examine it very carefully you will see that there are no details that are obviously impossible to mass-produce. Maybe the sideways-opening rear window will have to go because of some obscure bit of legislation from Brussels, but other than that, it looks real. It looks possible. And, more than that, it looks absolutely sensational.

It is quite similar in appearance to both the Jaguar XK and the Aston Martin V8, which is perhaps unsurprising since all three were styled by the same man. But it’s smaller than both of those, and cheaper, too. They’re talking about a price tag in the region of £55,000. For that, you would get a supercharged V6 engine, which would then be boosted further by a Formula One-style KERS, or kinetic energy recovery system. Engage this by pushing a little button on the steering wheel and the 375 horsepower coming at you from the petrol engine would be increased momentarily by 94 more from an electric motor. Will that be a showroom feature? Who knows? Price Waterhouse Coopers, probably.

I’ll be honest. I’m very excited about this car and especially the convertible version that’s bound to follow. There’s just one request, and I’m directing this at Jag’s chassis people, who have been a bit hardcore of late. While it is very important to keep the oversteer-crazed helmsmen at Autocar happy, can I please remind you that most of the people who’ll want to buy this car will be middle-aged with bad backs? They will want, therefore, a decent ride. This has to be your priority.

Anyway, that’s then, this is now and we have a new Jaguar XF to think about. Recently, when reviewing the new Audi A6, I said the Jag was not as good for a number of reasons. And then, in a shoddy piece of journalism, didn’t go on to say what they were. Truth is, I couldn’t remember. It’s just that the XF is a bit like Cheryl Cole. I recognize that she blows up many frocks, but I don’t see what the fuss is about, frankly.

Now, however, there’s a revamped model. It has a restyled bonnet and tweaked front end and new gills in the front wings. It looks fine, but outside a red carpet event it doesn’t look quite as fine as the BMW 5-series or the Audi A6. Somehow they look more modern and more expensive.

It’s the same story on the inside. I like the minimalism Jaguar’s designers tried to achieve, but it would have been better if they’d succeeded. I’m loath to say this, but it all looks a bit cheap. The headlamp switch, for instance, is on the indicator stalk. There’s only one reason to put it there: to save money. That’s why Mercedes and BMW don’t. Because they know we know.

Still, the most important new feature in this car is the engine. It’s a 2.2-litre four-cylinder diesel, and this is the first time Jag has ever used a four-pot paraffin stove in any of its cars. I was expecting great things because other diesel engines in the Jag and Land Rover range are excellent.

Unfortunately, this is not a Jag engine. In essence, it’s the same unit Ford, Citroën and Peugeot use and I’m afraid it’s not very good. It’s not refined and it’s not as economical as the engine BMW fits. What’s more, these days the government – idiotically – taxes you according to the composition of gases coming out of your tailpipe. And the fact is that the Jag’s engine produces way more CO2 than BMW’s equivalent.

There’s more. Every few thousandths of a second, the computer that runs the engine in a modern car takes stock of the prevailing conditions. It checks the temperature, the position of the driver’s foot, the gear he’s selected and the barometric pressure, and it compares its findings with a programmed map so that it knows precisely how much fuel to squirt into the cylinder to provide the perfect balance between power and economy.

To try to get the emissions down, Jaguar has very obviously fitted a map that demands the absolute barest minimum of fuel to keep the engine alive. As a result, around town it feels constantly on the verge of stalling. You can get round the problem by switching the eight-speed gearbox (why?) to ‘sport’ mode, but that rather negates the reason you bought a diesel in the first place.

All in all, then, this car is not Jag’s finest hour. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, the BMW 5-series is better in almost every way.

However, it has at least given me an idea. What if car companies started making concept cars that were uglier and less exciting than the actual cars they spawned? That way we’d always view a new car in the showroom with delight, rather than a tinge of disappointment.