Thursday, 31 October 2013
The 2014 Jaguar XJR comes with a seriously powerful engine and a very competent transmission, leading to excellent performance and passable fuel economy. The LCD instrument cluster incorporates brilliant context-sensitive features, and the Meridian audio system is superb.
Two things in particular delighted me about the XJR. First, the eight-speed gearbox completely trashes the slushbox reputation of automatic transmissions. When driving with intent, braking and accelerating hard, a glance at the tachometer showed that this transmission was holding the revs up around 5,500rpm in the turns. The Sport program on this transmission was near-telepathic, finding the right gears before I knew I wanted them.
Second, Jaguar incorporates some extremely useful tricks into its LCD instrument display. The virtual gauges on this display look a little flat, but what I like is how Jaguar dynamically highlights the numbers around the ends of the speedometer and tachometer needles. I found it really easy to pick out the car's velocity and the engine speed on the gauges with a quick glance.
There is also a voice command system, but it only covers the basics. Sure, I could place a phone call by saying the name of a contact stored in my phone, but I couldn't do more with the stereo other than choose an audio source. Entering addresses for navigation required tediously saying each part -- city, street, and number -- after a prompt.
The navigation system's maps also look a little crude and washed-out compared with what you might expect from a luxury brand, although they do show in plan and perspective views. Jaguar integrates traffic information, which route guidance can use to detour around traffic jams. But this system doesn't show the expanded traffic coverage over more surface streets I've seen in other cars.
