It’s the morning after the night before at Jaguar’s Saatchi Gallery launch for the new XJ. This morning a fresh load of B-list hacks were invited to see the new car in the raw, eight hours after the A-listers who saw it at the glitzy launch party proper last night.

More importantly though, this morning and into the early afternoon, Jaguar’s got two XJs doing laps around London’s city streets. So today, we finally get to see the new XJ in context. Which is when we can all make an informed decision about whether it’s a spudder or not.

For what it’s worth, I think the car’s a very smart design – in both senses of the word. It’s fresh, it’s avant-garde, it’s perfectly proportioned, and you certainly can’t help looking at it. A Quattroporte’s prettier, sure – but, though it takes some getting used to, I’d say this Jag isn’t far behind.

And I can say for definite that it looks nothing like a Citroen C6. From any angle. I love the long and elegant waistline, the long rear overhang and the ‘raptor’s eyes’ headlights. The cabin’s impressive; not so elegant, perhaps, but attractive and brimming with technology.

I love the touchscreen above the centre stack; it can display a DVD movie to the front passenger and the usual system information to the driver at the same time.