alongside our trusty blue 68-plater
for its last month in our care.
First things first: nobody denies
that the original XE has been a decent
but somewhat disappointing car. It
is well proportioned and sporty. Its
s u s p e n sion de si g n i s s oph i s t ic at e d ,combining sure handling with
impressive refinement. It drives
nicely, but original models look drab
out side , w it h a n a b s e nc e of e x t e r ior
impact, and have a fascia layout that
is nothing special. The XE situation
has been further complicated by a
worldwide decline in demand for
compact premium saloons, just at
the moment Jaguar was setting out
to challenge the Audi A4, Mercedes-
Benz C-Class and BMW 3 Series. The
upshot has been sales that have never
looked like reaching their target.
Yet my own experience with the
original R-Sport – in
which I amassed most of the car’s
quick and easy 9000 miles in what
seems a f lash – has been almost
entirely positive. The XE has turned
out to be one of those cars you quickly
grab when there’s a job to be done,
because it’s fast enough, convenient
enough, economical enough, compactenough and easy to park. Aside from
drabness, for us the car has two major
faults: road noise and ride.
Surface noise has dogged the
recent strain of Jaguars too much.
I can remember shortening a UK
F-Ty p e hol id ay t o York sh i r e w it h my
wife simply because the road noise
was too intrusive. I even remember
Nor m a n D e w i s , t he f a mou s Ja g u a r
test driver who was an instinctive
road tester until the day he died,
complaining about road noise while
riding in one of his company’s
creations well past his 90th birthday.
On its optional 19in wheels, our blue
XE R-Sport is noisy, and no mistake.
The ride issue is less clear cut.
The R-Sport is a tautly suspended
car, brilliant in roundabouts or for
neat, quick changes of direction.
A l s o g r e at i n lon g f a s t c or ne r s ,
where stability is paramount. Thelow driving position of the car, in
contrast with all the SUVs we now
d r i v e , i s mo s t l y v e r y e njoy a ble: t he
car feels efficient and sure-footed.
However, our original XE is also
one of those cars in which your
fellow occupants’ comfort becomes a
serious issue: you notice the person
b e side y ou i s a f fe c t e d b y bu mp s
more than you’d like and has to
talk over the surface noise. It’s not
I
JAGUAR XE
Our first XE, prop
elledby a (^197) bhp 2. 0
, was
always quick en
ough
OUR CARS
FEATURED THIS WEEK
Quality time spent in an original XE and a
facelifted version has let us get under the
skin of Jaguar’s compact exec saloon
FINAL REPORT MILEAGE 9668
WHY WE RAN IT
To understand Jag’s excellent but out-
of-favour compact saloon and see how
it’s improved for the 2020 model year
t was always an odd idea,
running an original-
s p e c Ja g u a r X E R-Sp or t
on long-term test when
the mid-life refresh was just around
the corner. We did it for a couple
of reasons. The XE is a car we’ve
always liked but hadn’t written much
about. And given that the mid-cycle
revision was close, we reckoned
it’d be interesting to see how our
c r it ic i sm s of t he or i g i n a l X E m at c he d
the changes Jaguar had cooked up for
the model’s second life. We arranged
to borrow a new-spec XE to run
PEUGEOT 5 08
66 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 3 1 JULY 2019
ALPINA B 4 S AUDI E-TRON BMW i3 HONDA CR-V JAGUAR XE