>> Brian: When you're Jaguar you're up against some pretty formidable competition these days with Lexus, Audi, BMW, Mercedes. What do you do? You do something very different. That is very different, that's the new XJ. Let's check it out.
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>> Brian: This is where you really should spend most of your time in a Jaguar because they do cabins rather well. Now, this one's got more technology than you've ever seen in a Jag before. Let's start with this screen; this is your 8 inch touch-screen where most of the functions are dealt with. You've got your audio and TV. TV, by the way, is a European thing we don't have that in the U.S. yet but look for that to likely be enabled as we adopt a mobile TV standard in 2010. Audio system is Bowers and Wilkins from 600 to 1,200 watts; they've got like 2 or 3 different grades. Your climate controls, of course, phone, the Bluetooth is for hands-free they do not have Bluetooth stereo streaming or A2DP in this car yet, and, of course, your navigation screen. This system is hard drive based, 10GB of which is reserved for you the user to rip either a commercial audio CD, as you can put those into the slot right here, or you can stick a USB drive into one of these 2 USB ports, and yes I said 2. Now, notice its all touch there is no controller like an iDrive or an MMI or in the Mercedes Command Controller here it's all going touch. Now, this controller here that pops up is not for navigating your interface that's actually your gear selector and it pops up and rises to you when the car is started. 6 speed automatic is common across all the XJ's, same gear box, paddles are up here, left is down-shift, right is up-shift. Now, notice some other cues here they've got this band, and in this case wood but it can also be carbon or other materials, it comes around the door and continues around the entire -- what is that the eyebrow line, I guess, of the cabin. They did that to bring down the mass so you don't feel like you're sitting in some claustrophobic pickle barrel. It really makes the car feel a lot airier in here even though it's got a fairly high cowel [phonetic] it doesn't look that much so. These surrounds around these nozzles for the HVAC actually glow in blue just like the illumination on the car when it's started up and you're running, a little touch. But the most amazing screen in this car is the one in front of the driver, those are the instruments. Those are all virtual gauges and they change different modes and can show different information, different messages about the car's status. When you're in voice command mode a list comes up on the right-hand side to prompt you what you can choose from so you're not memorizing what does this car want me to say, that's very smart. And I love that navigation thing when it goes there in that one round pod. What does it look like to you? Exactly, the nav screen in the 007 Aston Martin in Gold Finger. You know that's no coincidence. A variety of controls in the steering wheel here. You've got multi-mode on both sides. Here are your phone controls. You've also got a steering wheel heater and a couple other controls for other sorts of the machine's systems. This car in addition to having adaptive cruise control also has a collision avoidance system. The same radar rig that looks forward to keep you spaced on the highway will also let you know when you're about to bang into someone in low speed city driving. It does not apply the brakes though unlike the Volvo system. It just lets you know with audio and visual cues. They've also got some capacitance touch technologies in here. So here's the button for the glove box. Normally you'd push that thing and it would go cachunk [phonetic]. Instead all I do is lay my finger on it and it drops down. Same goes for these dome lights right here. You don't click them you just touch them. This button is for the message seats. What it does is bring the message controls up on the screen and you can set the rub and hug and tug the way you want it. 2 glass panels in the car, you've got your typical sliding tilting one in the front and a fixed one back here, which has its own matching suede curtain. And from here you've got a really good vista of this rather large, long, high, massive, flowing center console which gives this car a little more of a sporting feel than a fuddy duddy feel. Now, under the engine bay you've got the choice of a powerful motor and a downright crazy powerful motor. The base engine, and they're all 5 liter by the way, gas V8 with 380 horsepower or so, then you get to the supercharge motor in the middle which has about 470 horsepower, then to go all the way on the super sport you end up with 510 horsepower, 461 foot pounds of torque and that top motor gets there largely through software programming and a free-flow performance exhaust system. This new XJ is gonna run 80 to 115 grand, the later is more like what you'll pay for a loaded super sport long wheel base like the car we're looking at. Now, the XJ is Jaguar's bread and butter it needs to be well-received, yet it arrives in a crowded field of really great cars in that near to just over $100,000 space. And, of course, it arrives in the midst of what will still be a crappy global economy when the order taking begins in December for early 2010 deliveries.
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