The XE, Jaguar’s answer to the BMW 3-Series and Mercedes C-Class has just been priced in the UK, where it starts at £26,990 OTR. It ever so slightly undercuts the Mercedes, which kicks off at £27,270, while the BMW is cheaper in basic form, with a base price of £24,255.
You can already order your XE, but first deliveries are pegged for June; cars are already available for viewing and test drives at dealerships, though, so you can go try one out right now.
Before you visit the dealership, you can even configure your own via the special online app which you can access here.
Base XEs (in SE trim) come with “high quality cloth” seats, gloss black trim, sat-nav, cruise-control, 17-inch alloys, digital radio and a multifunction steering wheel clad in soft grain leather – let’s hope that’s not a byword for premature ware as is the case with current and slightly older Jags…
Move up to Prestige and you’re treated to heated leather front seats with contrasting stitching, Phosphor Blue ambient lighting and brushed aluminium instead of glossy plastic trim.
You can go even further up to Portfolio, which adds stuff like soft grain leather throughout the interior, 10-way-adjustable front seats, bi-Xenon headlights with LED DRLs and 18-inch rims. R-Sport gives you etched aluminium trim pieces, perforated leather, sports suspension and glossy black window trim.
Jaguar says the S is the most performance-oriented model. It can be had with the top supercharged V6 engine that’s shared with the F-Type. Rims grow to 19 inches as does the bodywork, through side sill extensions, a rear spoiler, gloss black rear valance and red calipers as well. Several luxury features are also added on this version.
Powertrain-wise, Ron Lee, Group Chief Powertrain Engineer, Jaguar Cars explains that the “new generation of Ingenium diesel engines are wholly designed and manufactured in-house at our new engine plant in Wolverhampton. No opportunity has been missed in ensuring their design is right on the cutting edge of technical advancement to achieve the highest levels of efficiency, performance and refinement.”
The base engine is a 2.0-liter diesel with 163 PS (161 hp) or 180 PS (177 hp); the lower-powered variant drops under 100 g/km CO2 and returns a claimed 75 mpg UK on the Euro combined cycle.
The first petrol engine is the 200 PS (197 hp) or 240 PS (236 hp) four-cylinder turbo. Then you have the blown V6 rated at 340 PS (335 hp) which pushes this smallest of the big cats to sixty in 4.9 seconds, before topping out at 155 mph (electronically-limited, of course).
