2010 Jaguar XJ Unveiled!

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG from Jaguar Cars

JAGUAR has unveiled, at long last, the next XJ sedan.

Former Tonight Show host and car collector exemplar Jay Leno emceed the event gratis. Or at least that’s what he inferred when he joked that Jaguar was looking to him for money.

Tony O’Driscoll, Jaguar’s chief executive, provides proof to pudding that unless you’ve got the oratory skills of Ronald Reagan pitching GE Progress, corporate types should stay the hell off the stage lest you kill the carefully crafted buzz.

But it was Ian Callum, the soft spoken Scot who spoke of his Jaguar dreams as a youth – particularly his lust for the original ’68 XJ saloon – who hit the ball out of the park. The audience was practically spell bound as the director of Jaguar design mouthed the words sensual styling, curves, and “you won’t forget me” in describing XJ style.

Indeed few will forget the new car. It’s different yet manages to retain a feline elegance. And while this new XJ seems to take some cues from Audi, Citroen, Lancia, and even Nissan, it appears nonetheless a car cut from an original swath of whole cloth.

With style, that most critical aspect of Jaguar’s sensual essence, confirmed as standard equipment in XJ’s going forward, everything else – including the 1200 watt, 20 speaker sound system- seems ancillary.

Coventry just hit a home run in London tonight.