1969 Jaguar Xke Series 2 Coupe, 4.2 Litre on 2040-cars

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2014 Jaguar XJL AWD 3.0

A bit of British nobility floods the senses when piloting the 2014 Jaguar XJ. It's an emotional rush, a perception based on physical surroundings that influence the mind in much the same manner that a stein of pilsner tastes best when consumed in a German beer garden and no sand is softer than that found on a warm Caribbean beach. Jaguar has been assembling cars for nearly 100 years, and few automakers are as equally adept at capturing aristocracy and timelessness within the rich cabins of their luxury offerings.
Jaguar would have no concern if it were the only game in town, but that's far from the truth. The premium full-size luxury segment, which includes vehicles hovering just under or at the six-figure mark, is a contentious grouping that includes the Audi A8, BMW 7 Series, Lexus LS, Mercedes-Benz S-Class and Porsche Panamera. Each of those brings its own game to the battle, and none are easy to dismiss.
To better understand the British perspective and evaluate its latest offering on a land without royalty, I recently spent a week with a long-wheelbase, all-wheel-drive Jaguar XJ in Southern California.

Artist imagines eerie world where cars have no wheels

The wheel ranks right up there with the telescope and four-slice toaster in the pantheon of inventions that have moved humankind forward. But what if a circle in three dimensions had never occurred to anyone, and we all had just moved on without it? Perhaps we'd be driving around in Lucas Motors Landspeeders with anti-gravity engines. Or maybe we'd have the same cars we do today, just without wheels.
That's the thought experiment that seems to have led French photographer Renaud Marion to create his six-image series called Air Drive. The shots depict cars throughout many eras of motoring that look normal except for one thing: they have no wheels. The models used include a Jaguar XK120, Cadillac DeVille (shown above), Chevrolet El Camino and Camaro, and Mercedes-Benz SL and 300 roadsters.
Perhaps one day when our future becomes our past, you'll be able to walk the street and see with your own eyes the rust and patina of age on our nation's fleet of floating cars. Until then, Monsieur Marion's photographs will have to do.

Jaguar designs Tour de France racing bike [w/video]

Jaguar is known for designing luxury sedans, and it's known for designing GTs. But once in a while it dabbles in a new area of transportation design. It's working on its first crossover at the moment, and even did a speedboat concept a couple of years ago. Now it's turned its attention to bicycles.
While many automakers have designed bikes in the past, Jaguar's project has a bit more of a direct correlation. It's been working with Team Sky - the outfit that has won the Tour de France two years running now - since 2010, furnishing the team with support vehicles for bicycle races around the world. But now it's stepping its collaboration up a notch by redesigning the team's bike.
Working with frame manufacturer Pinarello, Jaguar took the existing Dogma 65.1 racing bike design back to the drawing board. Jaguar's designers and engineers reshaped the frame tubes, seat post, front fork, derailleur and all the components attached to the frame, each part streamlined for aerodynamic efficiency. They ran it through Jaguar's Computational Fluid Dynamics processor 300 times then verified the results in the wind tunnel.