Eagerly awaited new Jaguars to be on sale soon

Press, 5 March 1987, Page 32

Eagerly awaited new Jaguars to be on sale soon

BEHIND the WHEEL with

Peter Greenslade

Launched in Scotland last September, the eagerly awaited new Jaguars — at least the 2.9litre XJ6 and the 3.6-litre Sovereign — have reached New Zealand and will go on sale shortly. The flagship, the 3.6-litre Daimler, has yet to reach these shores and, according to the national distributor, Jaguar New Zealand, Ltd, will be imported in very limited numbers.

These are super-luxury, high-performance saloons, bristling with electronics and resplendently furn-

ished in leather and polished walnut

Inevitably they will be compared with BMW’s new 7 Series saloon which the New Zealand motoring press corps will have an opportunity to sample on the Coromandel Peninsula at the end of this month.

Having already driven the new BMW in Munich last October and also the new Jaguars at Taupo late last month, I would score the cars equally. What the clinically near-perfect BMW loses in sheer luxury, it gains in raw performance. The Jaguar, and the Sovereign in particular, is the epitome of English good taste. The accent is on luxury rather than performance. Certainly, the Sovereign does not fall short in that regard, but it wears a better fitting velvet glove to conceal its mailed fist.

Jaguars should come to rule the super luxury class which for some years has been dominated by the West German Mercedes-Benz and BMW. They -will rule because they will be less costly, are unquestionably the best riding saloons and also because they are British and, as such, have a very loyal New Zealand following. These are very keenly priced cars. The 2.9 XJ6 will cost $106,543, the 3.6 Sovereign $135,503 and the Daimler flagship $149,333. By comparison, the 300 E Mercedes Benz, an extremely well designed and built saloon, currently wears a $143,582 price ticket. The 300 E is very much on a par with the 2.9-litre XJ6 in performance terms.

In all probability, the BMW 735 i will retail for at least $150,000 when the pricing is fixed. The only features of the new Jaguars that have been carried over from the older models are the names themselves.

Even though the new versions could not be mistaken for anything else, they are slimmer cars that make the older Series 111 XJ6 look as though it has middle-age spread — as, indeed, it should have,

because it first saw the light of day in 1968. A car

almost two decades old is

usually regarded as being past the prime of life. Although the traditional three-box style remains, giving the Jaguars their traditional silhouette, such up-to-the-minute features as a deep front air dam

and a neat rear spoiler terminating the end of the traditionally long but untraditionally deep luggage boot are understated and in timeless good taste. While the 2.9-litre XJ6 has Jaguar’s traditional paired headlights, the Sovereign and Daimler are fitted with oblong sealed beam units. They are prominent front-end features and, I would imagine, extremely vulnerable. A flying stone broke the glass of one within half an hour of setting off on the test drive.

Personally, I prefer the traditional paired lights, but that is a matter of taste.

The engines are the new generation AJ6 series — all-aluminium lightweights. They are more powerful, more economic and about 25 per cent lighter than the XK engines jised in the Series 111 saloons.

There are two versions. There’s the 3.6-litre double-overhead camshaft, 4-valves-per-cylin-der unit. With a bore and stroke of 91 x 92mm, it is virtually “square” and has a 9.6-to-l compression ratio. It develops 165 kW at 5000 rpm and its peak torque of 337 Nm at 4000 rpm. The electronic ignition and electronic fuel-injec-tion systems are new, having been developed by Lucas in conjunction with Jaguar. They are combined into a common digital engine management system with their control units integrated into one unit.

A “limp-home” facility is a major advantage of the Lucas management system. If any of eight different types of failure occur, the vehicle condition monitor alerts the driver by displaying “fuelling failure.” This is followed by a number which tells the service operator which type of possible failure has occurred.

The system then reverts to pre-set parameters stored in its memory and, as a result, the car remains drivable to reach the nearest garage or its owner’s home.

The 2.9-litre engine is broadly based on “half” the 5.3-litre Jaguar VI2, the bore spacing, 12.6-to-l compression ratio, May combustion chamber, cylinder head porting, valves and camshaft are as on the VI2. However, the shorter stroke of 74.8 mm demands a new crankshaft of similar design and bearing size to the 3.6-litre version and, because, of the May chamber, the 2.9-litre version has its own head casting. Manifolding is also special to this engine. This engine employs the Bosch EZ-F programmed electronic ignition system which provides a changing advance curve to match the detonation limit in the high compression head throughout the load range. A separate Bosch LH Jetronic system is em-

ployed for the fuel injection.

The 2.9-litre is more powerful than the older 3.4-litre XK unit It delivers 123 kW at 5600 rpm and its peak torque of 239 Nm at 4000 rpm. Frankly, I felt that although this power unit would be adequate for motorway driving, during which there should be little necessity to vary the throttle opening at cruising speed, it was somewhat lacking in the stopgo situations that are almost a hallmark of main highway motoring, particularly in the North

Island. In the main, New Zealand's open roads are so narrow that passing can be undertaken only with discretion. The necessity to spend an inordinate length of time on the “wrong” side of the road precludes many passing procedures. The 3.6-lltre engine is much more lively, the flexibility being quite outstanding. All the same, both engines are smooth and quiet although, naturally, the smaller one does make its presence felt when heavy demands are made upon it. Jaguars for New Zealand will be predominantly four-speed automatics. This version can be driven as a sporting "manual” gearbox if the driver wishes.

The automatic gearbox is the ZF 4HP 22. It is, in effect, a three-speed epicyclic transmission, in which the third ratio is a normal 1 to 1 top gear, with an extra fourth gear, which is a long-legged overdrive cruising gear.

With the selector in “D” and the accelerator pressed to the floor, the transmission will not change up to fourth gear, but any relaxation of the accelerator will allow it to do so, in the interests of optimum economy.

As an additional economy measure, the ZF transmission incorporates a lock-up clutch within the torque converter. This is engaged in fourth gear to exploit economy. However, although automatic transmission has been developed to the stage that it will cope with almost every driving situation, there are occasions, such as the descent of a steep hill or the necessity to hold a lower ratio to accelerate rapidly, when it is desirable to over-ride automatic transmission. Conventional in-line transmission selectors do not lend themselves ideally to manual override, because of the possibility of selection errors, so Jaguar engineers have developed the J-gate selector. This keeps the normal automatic control modes — P (park), R (reverse), N (neutral), and D (drive) — on one side of the selector console well separated from the over-ride modes — D, 3 and 2— on the other side.

The driver can switch to one mode or the other simply by moving the selector lever along a Jshaped channel. In the over-ride mode, one simply makes clutchless changes either upwards or downwards. I found the over-ride mode a real asset in the less responsive 2.9-litre XJ6 and useful on rarer

occasions in the larger engined Sovereign The Getrag 265 fivespeed manual gearbox is standard on the XJ6 and is already well proven in

the XJ-S 3.6 Jaguars. While it is by no means easy to design a fine drivetrain such as is found in the new Jaguars, it is infinitely more difficult to design a luxury saloon with quiet, comfortable suspension, because such a car must possess the highest levels of steering precision, handling, stability and road-holding. It Is in these departments that the Jaguars excel. The wishbbne system has allowed designers to choose the best wheel geometries for cornering and vehicle stability. Antidive and anti-squat characteristics have been included to enhance comfort and stability. The front suspension is a carry-over from the Series 111, although it is all new. Wishbones and uprights are Of forged steel with the! wishbone pivots angled to give antidive characteristics. Coil springs are motinted between the wishbones and the subframe.

Rear suspension features a patented compliance system. It incorporates a pendulum arrangement which allows fore and aft movement of the lower wishbone inner fulcrum, but maintains high lateral stiffness. A fixed length driveshaft and joints are employed as the top link on each side and the lower wishbones are fabricated from two pressings.

The rear disc brakes are now mounted outboard. That reduces the sprung to unsprung weight ratio, but leaves it better than 10 to one to maintain wheel control for handling and comfort.

There are other features in the suspension that help to make it the best I’ve sampled. This is a car that rides exceptionally smoothly on all surfaces, except finely corrugated tarmac, on which the ride is ai bit jiggly. That might be due to high tyre pressure, r These cars j ride like magic carpets.; Unlike the Series m, whiiffi fended to yaw a little quite markedly in corners, this new range rides straight and true and corners flat.

Stability and road-hold-ing, the brakes and the responslveness'|«— particularly of the Sovereign — build tremendous i confidence in the driver and passengers and' it is certainly not misplaced. In fact, it. would be extremely difficult to find a better-balanced luxury saloon. \ Space does not permit a more comprehensive description. Suffice it. to say that these new, Jaguars are treasure trovfes of electronic and mechanical innovation. Their interiors are redolent with the typical Jaguar odour of hide upholstery and highly polished wood. These traditional features conceal the up-to-the-minute technology that makes the Jaguars almost certainly the finest and not the most expensive cars in their class today.

(Photo, opposite page.)