Auto News 5

We've now passed the six-month mark with our 420-hp Four Seasons Jaguar XF Superchaged, and its dual personality continues to vex us: lovely styling and first-rate vehicle dynamics made this car a 2009 All-Star, but a seemingly endless list of quality problems has seriously marred the ownership experience. When the XF first arrived in our fleet in August, staff members lined up to sign it out, so enamored were we. Web editor Phil Floraday even complained that it took four months before he had his first chance to actually get behind the wheel. Nowadays, however, there is a general reluctance to sign out the XF for any trip of more than a hundred miles, for fear that something might break.

Mike O'Driscoll, Jaguar's longtime managing director, is a happy man these days. Sure, Jaguar is just as susceptible to the worldwide economic slowdown as any other purveyor of luxury goods, but O'Driscoll's eyes light up when he explains that the company's lineup is undergoing a wholesale metamorphosis in the twenty-four-month period that began in January 2008 and ends this December. The misbegotten X-type is gone; the all-new XJ, reportedly a stunner, will be in dealerships by December; and the XF sedan gets new V-8 engines for the 2010 model year (as do the XK coupe and convertible), including a supercharged version that powers the new, high-performance XFR.