The 2016 Jaguar XE is a huge deal for the British luxury brand and its ongoing modern renaissance. Jaguar has dumped a ton of money into a new all-aluminum architecture as well as a range of new engines to go with the proven ones. They need it to be a big volume-seller that can fight the BMW 3-Series, one of the toughest segments in all of car-dom.
It’s the car that aims to push Jaguar into global mass-market success in a way that they’ve never really experienced. There’s a lot riding on the XE, but is it really up to the task? According to our friends at XCAR, the answer is a resounding “yes.”
Here’s their video first drive of Jaguar’s new entry-level sport sedan. They test the XE S, which gets the 3.0-liter, 340 horsepower supercharged V6 from the F-Type S and a ZF 8-speed automatic. It’s a thoroughly modern, high tech sedan from the same folks that brought us one of the best sports cars in a generation. Don’t call it an X-Type.
I’m glad to hear such an important car for Jaguar turned out so well. Let’s see how buyers warm up to it.
Contact the author at patrick@jalopnik.com.