With Jaguar teasing its XF Sportbrake in a cheeky Christmas card, we wanted them to know exactly why America deserves a shaggin' Jag wagon for Christmas. People who obsess about station wagons are disconnected from the car-buying public, you say? Who cares. Dead horse, prepare for another beating.
5.) Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and even Cadillac need competition. There's a market here for European-style luxury cars — not too soft, not too rigid. An iron fist in a velvet glove, as it were. Not all Americans want to float down an interstate like Boss Hogg getting a shave in his barber's chair. Not all Americans need to pull heavy equipment on the outside, while riding in business class on the inside. Not all Americans need to feel like they're looking down on the road from an assassin's perch. The Japanese haven't quite been up to the task, but they're regrouping. It's all up to you, Jaguar.
4.) Power of suggestion. Yes, we're not all that jazzed about buying station-wagons en masse. But that's today. Remember the companies who were ahead of the curve when Americans decided they wanted to drive trucks and SUVs more than cars? Yes, it was Ford and GM and Range Rover. Take a page out of your partner brand's playbook. Be there before anyone else, so when tastes change — and we know they will — you'll be ready to pounce. Like a good jungle cat should.
3.) People who drive SUVs are on Santa's naughty list. It's a fact — something to do with selfishness. Anyone who drives a car lower than an elephant's rectum will tell you; SUVs make sitting in traffic like surfacing a submarine without a periscope. But what of the consumer who demands such vehicles, the ones who say, "But I deserve to look down on the road from space"; the ones who say, "I have to tow a boat!" "How will I get my show dogs to Westminster?" "How will I get my suburban spawn to Adderall practice?" Here's how: in a Jaguar station wagon. Santa hates you, get over it.
2.) The British? Who's that? It's no joke. Britishness is fading in American pop culture. Ask any kid today what they think about London Fog raincoats or fried breakfasts or 24 Hour Party People, and they'll stare blankly, like you've told them real vampires look like Hungarian washerwomen, not Ashley Greene. These kids have no idea that a whole generation of E-droppers before them were weaned on DJs who talked like the Geico Gecko, or that Blur commented on casual bisexuality all the way back in, gasp, 1993! Bring moar British, for the kids.
1.) We've been good. Us car nerds have stood by as the auto industry has built cars with the horsepower of a 19th-century steamship, cars that lap the Nürburgring quicker than Jackie Stewart's Tyrrell-Ford and even moderately-powered, lightweight cornering machines that make carving a twisty road as safe as pouring lemonade from a plastic jug. Fine. Now give us a fast station wagon, already. I mean, give us another one, already. What do we have to do, stand on our heads?