To stoke the embers of the Jaguar XF range and keep sales ticking over until its replacement arrives, JLR has announced various equipment upgrades and a new run-out variant called the Jaguar XF R-Sport Black.
That name’s quite a mouthful…
It’s based on the existing XF R-Sport variant, which is essentially a regular XF that looks a bit sportier with bigger wheels and chunkier bumpers, in the mold of BMW’s M Sport or Audi’s S line models.
The Black adds various bits of trim and equipment icing on top of the R-Sport cake, including 20-inch alloys (in black, natch) and a powerful 770w Meridian surround sound system.
Altogether, Jaguar says there’s an extra £8,770 worth of equipment over the regular R-Sport, for a price increase of £2,100.
What’s new for the rest of the range?
New alloy wheels all round, along with the Winter Comfort Pack (heated seats and screen) and Parking Pack (front parking sensors and rear-view camera), previously options at extra cost but now standard on all models.
Posh Porfolio and S Portfolio trims get a blind spot monitor, as do the XFR and XFR-S performance models, and there are lots of further detail upgrades to each trim individually.
The upgrades apply to both the saloon and the Sportbrake estate.
Jaguar’s simplified the range a little too, by deleting the SE, SE Business and Premium Luxury trims. The Luxury trim, previously a mid-spec model, is now the first rung on the XF ladder, followed by the R-Sport, R-Sport Black, Portfolio, XFR and XFR-S.
The range starts at £33,445 for the 2.2-litre diesel Luxury, stretching to a heady £82,495 for the XFR-S Sportbrake.
Some of the engine range has been culled too – the 3.0-litre V6 petrol’s gone and so has the 248bhp 3.0-litre TDV6 diesel.
When does the new XF arrive?
It’s likely to be unveiled at the New York motor show in April. In the meantime, the current-gen XF actually recorded its best year of sales to date in 2014.
Jaguar’s certainly keeping busy at the moment. The XE mid-sized exec saloon arrives in April 2015 and the newly named F-Pace crossover arrives in 2016.
Click here to read how CAR got on with its long-term Jaguar XF Sportbrake in 2014.