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| Road Test Jaguar XF 4.2 SV8 |
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Grace And Pace
But first I had to get there. That took about 40 minutes, and what became clear during that time was that although the SV8 is the high-performer of the XF range, it still feels like a luxury car when you're not trying to get anywhere in a hurry. In fact, it feels a lot more luxurious than the naturally-aspirated 4.2-litre V8 model, which I drove briefly earlier and which has considerably inferior ride quality thanks to a mismatch between the low-profile tyres and the soft suspension settings. The SV8 has even lower-profile tyres (sitting on 20" wheels, the largest available as standard on any XF) and the suspension is still quite soft, but the combination works better. If you had to choose between those two models and a cossetting ride was your main requirement, the SV8 would be the one to go for. However, that's not the point of this test, which I decided even before I opened the driver's door would be based primarily on how this car performs. The challenging-road stuff give me all the answers I needed about three of the SV8's most important features, and although I could discuss them in any order I'm going to follow convention and start with:
The Engine. Nothing very new here. Jaguar has been offering high-performance models with a supercharged version of the 4.2-litre V8 for several years now, and that's what the fastest and most expensive XF gets too. No question, it's a fantastic unit, as docile as an anaesthetised kitten when you don't need to get anywhere in a hurry, but capable of producing 414bhp and firing the XF from 0-62mph in 5.4 seconds if that's what you want it to do. |
