Long Story
by David Finlay (02 Jun 05)

The introduction of first the S-Type and later the X-Type brought Jaguar within the reach of many buyers who would not otherwise have been anywhere near its customer base. In business terms, these cars can therefore be thought of as a Good Thing, but I often feel that they lack a certain confidence, as if they were not the cars that Jaguar people really want to make.

With the XJ saloon range, however, Jaguar is operating right in the middle of its comfort zone, and the car tested here is one of the best examples of that. It's the less expensive of two long-wheelbase models, using the 4.2-litre V8 engine in naturally-aspirated form (the Super V8, which is the extended version of the XJR, uses the same engine with a supercharger and costs about £11,000 more).

The extra length amounts to 125mm, or just under five inches, and all of it is supplied to the rear passengers. There is no change to the luggage compartment volume of 470 litres, and from the front seats the car feels just like a regular XJ.

Since Jaguar has a tendency to make cars which are very large on the outside and surprisingly small on the inside, this means that drivers who are more than six feet tall might wish for a few extra cubic inches around them, but there are unlikely to be any complaints of that sort from the folk in the rear. There is quite simply a colossal amount of room back there.

If you plunge into the options list, you can turn the rear of the LWB into something like a second home. The test car had pretty much everything, including a separate multimedia package for the back seat occupants. There's a DVD player, with 6.5" screens built into each of the front headrests, and with a control unit hidden in the central armrest.

Being a conscientious sort of fellow, I had intended to spend the next couple of paragraphs telling you about how I lazed around in the back of the car one afternoon, watching movies and generally having a splendid time. Unfortunately, I first had to find out how to get the control unit started (it has some sort of electronic lock), but the handbook which tells you how to do that wasn't supplied with the car. Shoot. Oh, well. I'm sure it's wonderful.

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