Orangewheels:
Overdrive:Clearly the XFR is an excellent car and well done to Jaguar for producing such a competitive high perfromance sports slaoon, but quite honestly this kind of overblown (bordering on the school kids level) adulation and so obviously biased type of journalism, does the Autocar testing objectivity and credibility no credit.
The M5 and E63 both received exactly the same level of praise in Autocar, which depending on the car you drive is obviously biased towards every other manufacturer.
I'm so bored of reading how Autocar is biased towards BMW, Audi, Ford, VW, Jaguar or whichever brand the poster happens to hate this week. Please people, just get over it.
The XFR was specifically set up for British roads and is bound to work better than almost anything else here. If you think Autocar is biased towards Jaguar, please go read an X-Type vs 3 Series Autocar road test.
Orange, normally I agree with you, but not on this point, at least not totally.
I never ever read that the M5 and E63 "are at least as refined as any luxury car". I never read that even the M5 (which generally used to be considered the best handling of the big sports saloons), was SO MUCH better that it could "drop the best of its rivals in a heart beat", never mind the E63. And I certainly never read the M5 or E63 having the fastest real world performance that none of its rivals could match, when this wasn't the case (and whatever else you might think, the XFR is not faster than the RS6).
The XFR currently may well be well the best all-round sports saloon in the UK, which is great to see (about time Jag started to lived up to the promise), but it's these factually dubious claims (and let's face it, it's highly unlikely that XFR is "at least as refined as an S-Class or the big Lexus) and clearly partisan nonsense that Autocar feels it needs to feed people to make this car sound like something from outer space that's laughable and makes one incredulous.
Also, I don't buy this suggestion of a pro-BMW bias in Autocar, which comes up quite often. Loads of BMW models have been thoroughly slagged off (in some cases rightly) in Autocar e.g. the X3, 6-series, the 7- series, some 1-series models etc. Even some of BMW's best cars like the M5 only receive qualifed prise (e.g. terrible gear box, diesel clatter engine noise at low speeds etc).
However, you are correct that for whatever reason, Jaguar and Ford (with the exception of perhaps the x-type, which very obviously wasn't particularly good), seem to always receive uncritical and overblown praise in the Autocar and that's the issue I'm referring to. Heck, according to Autocar the XF's predecessor, the S-type, was already better the current 5-seires! Need I say more?