Latest Cars And Bikes Reviews

It has hardly been the best-kept of secrets, but visitors to Detroit will be the first to see the new R version of the Jaguar XF plus the revised range of XKs. All these cars get Jaguar’s all-new 5-litre V8 engine, which replaces the 4.2-litre unit and has just the cylinder-head bolts and the exhaust tappets in common with it.The new engines, and the 3.0-litre twin-turbo diesel recently announced, are joined to revised ZF automatic transmissions which should feel more DSG-like than ever, thanks to crisper shifts and more locking-up of the torque converter.

One thing that’s missing from the supercharged engine is the characteristic whine. Sandford hates it: ‘It’s the sound of imperfect machinery and it shouldn’t be there,’ he says. So there’s a new Eaton ‘Twin Vortex’ supercharger with four lobes per rotor instead of three, which is more efficient and soaks up less energy to drive it. The water-cooled intercooler can absorb up to 30kW of heat from the intake air.

It’s all quite understated, as is the interior which gets some new dark wood and aluminium treatments and new body-hugging front seats. Understated, that is, unless you go for the Red Zone seat facings. The former CATS suspension, with its two automatic stiffness settings, is replaced by a continuously-variable Bilstein system using sliding valves. The XF SV8, incidentally, has disappeared from the range although Jaguar insists the XFR is not its replacement, being an altogether harder-edged car.

The new XKR is mechanically almost exactly the same as the XFR, and both get a new electronic active differential which functions much like Ferrari’s version. So if there’s a tail slide, it can divert torque to the outside rear wheel to help correct it instead of relying on the electronic stability system to brake the inside rear wheel. With the stability system switched off, both Jaguars are set up to allow progressive power slides with the electronic differential keeping torque where it needs to be.