Drive Jaguar XJ since 2012 sedan

Aristocats

Jaguar was created by people terribly far from the people. Sensual forms in combination with powerful engines were called upon to delight only the demand consumer, who is not indifferent to museums and a bohemian lifestyle. And he paid off with a worthy coin-from now on, and until the end of the years, in the word Jaguar, the rhythm of the nascent rock and roll will be heard, the swearing of Cheizov gangsters and the melodic chime of Big Ben. Jaguar XJ6 Sport 4.0 release of 1997, finding himself on Moscow streets, clearly disharmonious with his aristocracy with a unwashed capital's landscape. For which he was isolated an autopilot for a test drive in a place that was carefully protected from the working masses for several centuries-the museum-estate Kuskovo.
CAT HOUSE
Last year, autopilot employees were lucky for the first time to get acquainted with Jaguar XJ Seria. It was the XJ6 4.2 1982 release, which, despite the comparative freshness, was an antique toy. A wooden panel, peace and comfort of the salon, a bright body of the color of the lipstick, the abundance of chromium - in this car I wanted to listen to the blues, sniff cocaine and, rushing to the concert in the Covent Garden, spit through the fans running along with fans with the Babett. We also expected such emotions from the new XJ6 Sport. However, they received completely different ones.
The luxurious representative car seemed to grow up with its generation, which changed the rebellious neck scarf to a strict black tie. It was, without a doubt, the impressive aristocrat Jaguar XJ6 - for example, the mourning Prince Charles could have come out of this. However, the universal fashion for the international roundness of forms nevertheless significantly reduced the former purely British pathos in the new car.
The most significant changes in the XJ Jaguar XJ series occurred in 1993 - four years earlier than Jaguar Company began to refuel people from Ford. In 1994, the updated XJ series successfully debuted at the Paris Motor Show, after which she began to be successfully sold around the world. One year later, one authoritative automobile magazine called XJ6 the best car in the Luxury Cars category. It is useful to add that this year, such aircraft of the automotive industry as the Audi A8, Mercedes S-Class, Bentley Continental R and Lexus LS400 fought for this title.
Luxury - this is a key and hardly in need of translation, the concept determined the strongest side of the car that we got to the test. Even despite her sports modification. Unlike his own brother - XJ6 Sovereign, which is undoubtedly more Luxury and for this reason, by the way, about a quarter more expensive, the XJ6 Sport belongs to the family of comfortable cat cars simply by definition. A luxurious dark blue body and a white leather interior of our car shouted about this every detail. In general, it seemed that, having lost their famous nasal figure, the designers decided to compensate for this with the image of the Yaguar muzzle or its silhouette literally on everything - from the gearbox selector to the gas tank cover. And this constant emphasizing your own significance is valid - every minute you remember that you are in the legendary car.
For people with ambitions
Despite its representative and impressive appearance, the Jaguar XJ6 Sport is poorly designed to drive a driver. Not even the largest passengers in the rear seats are crowded here, and if you imagine a high fat man, which is driving into a low salon ... This, by the way, is a rather important circumstance if we are talking about a car with ambitions whose passengers should be people with ambitions. And such are not so rarely very large persons ...
In any case, we made an unambiguous conclusion: XJ6 Sport, first of all, is a car for a driver who knows his price and is indifferent to the attention of others. There is no doubt that on the roads of the Russian city, regardless of the degree of its spoiling, there will be no lack of such attention.
Equipping the cabin is traditionally for a machine of this class - heating seats, a full electric package, a two -position hatch, a button for adjusting the headlights, air conditioning, a stereo system with RDS and a lock, automatically snaping all the doors after turning on the transmission. An interesting detail - above the driver’s place, the buttons of adjusting the hatch, the small glove compartment is located - especially for dark (and what else?) Glasses.
Of course, this model can be equipped with both a mechanical and automatic gearbox, but the second option that we get in deserves a separate conversation.
Switching the selector lever here passed along the trajectory resembling a truncated letter V - on the right side of the mode from P to D, and on the left - low gears. Thus, you can get to the Driving position, just lowering the lever to the stop, not losing sight of the road and not counting the clicks.
Sport or comfort?
A powerful engine from the cabin is practically not heard. The dynamics is an important indicator of a sports car - we were a little disappointed, although, as dealers assured us, this is largely due to the fact that the car was almost new: after a month of engine operation, the machine should accelerate better.
The hard suspension, characteristic of sports models, slightly smoothed out the first impression of comfort, however, the compromise between sports and comfort, which is inaccessible in world practice for representative machines, in our case was provided psychologically - nevertheless we were inside the jaguar. Obviously, the too demanding owner over time would have to look for some compromises in relations with this car. For example, he would have to put up with such a minus XJ6 Sport as the absolute contraindication of driving on bad roads.
In general, if you fold the disadvantages, you get a set of a picky boring: there is not much space in the cabin as we would like, the dynamics of the sports model could be better, the car, of course, holds the road cool, but this is if we are talking about good road
But all this fades before the feeling that you are dealing with Jaguar, still true to yourself. And the one who is dear to this Yaguar aristocracy, laying out $ 75-85 thousand. Surely it will be good to imagine what he does.
And implacable supporters of the classical style can be said that it doesn’t occur to anyone to stop listening to Beatles only because the cheeks were fat with age.
The editorial office thanks the car dealership City Motors, (095) 362-8113, 362-0849, for the car provided for the test, as well as the Directorate of the Museum of the Estate of Kuskovo for help in the shooting.
 
Jaguars gather in packs
There is a special category of cars, the owners of which have a harmless desire to talk to each other in an urgent need to isolate from the rest of the world. If you remember, we already talked about the Moscow club Porshe. Jaguar Clubby is even more characteristic.
True, he is so recently in our country that there is no real club yet. But the centripetal force is so great that the jaguar owners are still gathering. So far - in the store a collection of Jaguar on Zhukov Avenue (those who wish can, having sufficient patience, see the whole range of produced and produced models there). And having gathered, they talk about how to organize a real club. You know, in the West there are quite a lot of such clubs. They even publish a special Jaguar Life magazine for us, ”Dmitry Kozraitsky, general director of the City Motors, and a convinced fan of the English beast sighs sadly. - He does not reach Russia. We have to travel to Europe for him. Among the members of the future club there are many show businessmen (in particular, Boris Zosimov) and politicians (preferring not to reveal their automobile addiction to the general public).
For which the owners value their jaguars, of course. Firstly, for the eternal design, the constancy of which will envy any Saab or Mercedes. Secondly, for reliability. But there is a side effect: whether the yaguarians like it or not, the attitude of everything else of humanity to them cannot be called neutral. Even for Muscovites who are accustomed to everything, Jaguar remains a foreign car with a capital letter. You go around Rublevka, where people have seen enough. And still, everyone stops, rebuilt, try to see. Quite solid people are suitable, on the Merses themselves, with security, and begin to ask. And ordinary cars literally bounce in all directions, so they are afraid to damage something for you. On some Volvo-960, for example, not a feeling at all-here you are as if alone on the road, you do what you want. This is about the cars. And the girls literally rush under the wheels - also not to compare with any other machine. The police do not slow down at all. What is affecting? There are so few jaguars that it is almost pointless to steal - both there is no experience, and the owners know too well who goes to what.
Now about technology. Of course, the cost of repairing owners of jaguars, of course, cannot interest. The hunt will be disappeared petty money when one tire of a rare yaguar size of 15.5 inches costs at least $ 400. So when they casually abandon: well, Mercedes as a whole is not bad - economical, inexpensive in maintenance - this is not bravado, but a simple statement of fact. If we talk about reliability, then everything is large, according to reviews, exceptionally durable - body, motor, suspension. But against this background, it can be especially unpleasant to annoy any trifle: it has not passed since the day of purchase and eight years, one owner told how the electrician began to flounder, all sorts of clamps, tubes and pipes fall off. Disgusting. However, dealers claim that in new machines and these shortcomings are eliminated.
Model/Modification Jaguar XJ6
The manufacturer Jaguar Cars Ltd.
The manufacturer of the UK
BODY
Type sedan
Number of doors/places 4/5
ENGINE
Basin type with multi -point injection
The location in front is longitudinally
Working volume (see cubic meter) 3980
The number/location of the cylinders 6 is in a row
Cylinder x Diameter piston (mm) 91x102
The degree of compression is 10.1
Power KW (L.S.) 177 (241)
At (about./Min.) 4800
Moment (NM) at (about./Min.) 375 (4000)
Valve number/cylinder 4
TRANSMISSION
Rear -wheel drive
The gearbox is four -speed, automatic
SUSPENSION
Front independent, on double transverse levers
Rear independent, on transverse levers
STEERING
Type gear-rake, with hydraulic power steering
Brakes
Front disk ventilated
The rear circular ventilated
ABS standard equipment
Wheels
Tire size 225/55 zr16
Dimensions/about EME/Weight
Length/width/height (mm) 5025/1800/1360
Wheel base (mm) 2870
The track front/track of the rear (mm) 1500/1500
Minimum turning radius (m) 6.4
Dry mass (kg) 1800
Dynamic characteristics
Maximum speed (km/h) 232
Acceleration to 100 km/h (sec.) 7.8
Economy
Fuel consumption (l/100km)
At 90 km/h 7.7
At 120 km/h 9.7
On the city cycle 14.3
Price $ 85 thousand

What else
You can lay your immortal soul for the possession of such a machine: start sniff cocaine and even learn English in order to swear like a Chemiz's gangster. And if the Komsomol raised a persistent dislike for drugs, and foreign languages \u200b\u200bare not stubbornly given, then you need to look for something simpler if the word is even easier to apply to machines of this class.
The first to come to mind is Rolls-Royce. But the trouble is - it is not necessary to sit behind the wheel. In Rolls, you can and should only go from behind, plunged into the reading of the Times. So, select Bentley Brooklands. Many uninitiated even confuse them. But we know that Bentley specially came up with the snobs who want Rolls, but love to shuffle themselves. Shiku in it is undoubtedly more than in Jaguar. It has more and more in it: price, weight, size, engine - a good machine, like a person, should generally be a lot. Only now the sports in it is not enough: Bentley Jaguar loses both in speed and overclocking dynamics.
Well, since Bentley is too solid and degree, then Maserati Quattroporte is just suitable. This beast beats Yaguar just in terms of sports. This is exactly the car on which you can comfortably drive along the highway. One but - a hard suspension and a small clearance will not allow you to tear yourself to the fullest on your native roads. Unless along the MKAD - Domodedovo and vice versa.
Lexus LS 400 is just right for those who want to be closer to the people. The car has a smaller price, and the appearance does not immediately cause class hatred, which is still strong in our people. And the rest is quite consistent - both according to the running characteristics and in terms of comfort.
But Jaguar is still a jaguar, and it is difficult to find a real replacement for such a machine, if not impossible.
Dmitry Popov,
Stepan Rybakov (photo)
 

Source: "Autopilot"