The second coming?

Those of a certain vintage will recall John Steed steaming around in one of these in The New Avengers, including somewhat implausibly catching and passing a slick-shod, bewinged March 752 Formula 2 car on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. If that’s not you, the car is a beautiful pillarless coupé design based on the XJ saloon. Its engineering proved troublesome to say the least, leading to a two-year delay between the car first being shown and it going on sale, addressing the issues caused by the removal of the B-pillar being the primary issue. Despite using the short wheelbase that featured briefly at the start of Series 2 saloon production, so much strengthening was required to make up at least some of the structural losses, that the shorter, two-door coupé ended up weighing perhaps 100kg more than the longer, four-door XJ saloon that was sold alongside it.

Still, I wonder how much the engineers of the new XJ (or whatever it’s to be called) would give to be dealing with a kerbweight of around 1850kg, instead of one almost certain to broach the 2700kg mark.

And there are no meaningful similarities in their configurations much past having four wheels and seats. This, then, is all about a sense of shared values and objectives. Is the new X900 Jaguar (to give it its proper codename) really the true child of the XJ12-C, despite being some generations removed, or is it all just so much hot air blown at a bunch of suggestible journos in the hope some tenuous but crucial connection between its past and future can be made, so people like me can say, ‘fret not: despite all that weight, despite the EV powertrain, this is a true Jaguar’?

Well I’m afraid you won’t be hearing that from me today, and if you hear it from anyone else, be very suspicious: the car could only be driven on JLR’s own test track, for a limited period of time and while its hardware is 100 per cent signed off, its software is described as about 70 per cent there, with some quite important damper work still to be done. But I can, I think, say whether it is at least heading in the right direction.

But to do that, I must first drive the old ‘un.

There’s so much to enjoy in here even though I far prefer Jaguar interiors of the 1960s to those from the 1970s like this – there’s just too much ugly plastic switchgear. But the acres of wood veneer, the simple Smiths instruments (reassuring to see it keeping with tradition that neither the rev-counter nor oil pressure gauges are working today), that liquorice thin steering wheel and lovely T-bar gear shifter are all a feast for the eyes. As is the view down the gently undulating bonnet, under which sits Wally Hassan’s 5.3-litre V12, an engine which, like the straight-six he’d previously helped design, was good enough to work in everything from limos to Le Mans winners.

In this spec, complete with the Lucas fuel injection that arrived in the mid ’70s, it’s producing around 285bhp, little more than a quarter of the output promised for its all-electric descendant. Still it was reckoned to be good for a sub-8 second 0-60mph time and a top speed of around 145mph, making it broadly competitive with the contemporary 4.8-litre V12 Ferrari 400, at least when equipped with the same General Motors-supplied three-speed automatic transmission. Bloody rapid, in other words, at least by the standards of half a century ago.

Today, not so much. It takes so long to start you briefly wonder if there’s not a platoon of Strombergs under there needing priming, but when it does catch, it does so cleanly and smoothly. You lift the lever a little before pulling back into Drive and wait for the tiny jolt to reassure you it’s found its mark. There’s a slight stiffness at the top of the throttle pedal’s travel, but then you’re moving, gently rolling towards the test tracks.

You want to take your time with this car – it’s not a Ferrari where what you want to discover most is what it’s like when driven as hard and as fast as it will possibly go – but time is not a luxury we have today. So as soon as I pull onto the vast ‘High Speed Emissions’ track, I give it a prod and we’re off.

It is that smooth, surging response that Jaguar needs to bottle for the new car. There’s nothing sudden about it, nor does the torque curve allow any peaks and troughs. It just builds, quite gently at first, but seemingly inexorably until you look down and see a three-figure speed on the dial. Were it not for the wind noise (the major bugbear of all pillarless coupés as anyone who’s driven a Facel Vega will tell you), I’d have been surprised. What is surprising is that the old girl is still hauling, aided by the short gearing fashionable for the era and a clearly very healthy V12. I ease off just short of 120mph and just hold it there, imagining what it would be like for hour after hour like this on the traffic and police-light motorways of Europe 50 years ago. And conclude it would be fabulous, though for how long it would last at likely close to single digit miles per gallon at such velocities is another question altogether.

I love its stance too. At the end of the longest straight there’s a left-hand curve preceded by a big speed limit board saying ‘80mph’, though whether that’s an instruction or a suggestion is not clear. What is clear is it’s intended for modern cars, not those that were around when Pink Floyd were in their pomp. It looks a little ambitious, but the engineer next to me, whom I first met in a Britcar paddock 25 years ago, says it’ll be fine. So I guide it in and feel it start to roll. It’s a little disconcerting at first because the steering is light and it rolls a stupendous amount by modern standards. But then you realise two things: first it is going exactly where you’re pointing, next that the actual roll rate is nicely controlled. Far sooner than I had imagined I’m hard back on the power, making the back sit down a little whereupon it feels even better.

Even on the slower turns of the low speed circuit, it’ll roll all over the place and make its tyres howl in agony; what it won’t do, however, is understeer. This is a car set up by Norman Dewis, one of the world’s great chassis engineers, whose work started in earnest with the development of the D-Type racer in the early 1950s and continued until the release of the XJ40 in the late 1980s. And he regarded a car which refused to meet an apex with the enthusiasm it deserved as a car not worth driving.

Even before I drive the X900, I can see exactly why messrs Glover, Becker and Darlington felt this car provided the best evocation of the spirit they are trying to invoke. I drove some other oldies that day too – a very early flat floor E-Type, a very late V12 E-Type and a Series 1 XJ12 saloon, and while the later E came close, none was better at providing that blend of ride and handling, combined with not the right performance, but the right kind of performance I imagine Jaguar is seeking with its new GT.

It’s time to find out. I wish I could tell you more about how the new car looks, but save that we’re told the real deal will look very similar to the Type 00 concept and what you can glean from the proportions of this heavily camo’d (inside and out) car, there really isn’t that much more to say. I’ve been told I’m not even allowed to sit in the back, though someone who did and is 5ft 11in looked cosy back there, and not for all the right reasons. I’d expect Porsche Taycan levels of rear seat space, at best.

But at least today I’ll be driving it, the first time a journalist has been allowed behind the wheel on something approximating to public roads, even though they are nothing of the sort.

It’s an ‘always on’ car which I still find disconcerting. There’s no button to press, you just apply index finger to column stalk, depress gently and exert pressure on the throttle pedal. The XJ (as I’m going to call it) glides forward. Instinctively I feel for some paddles, not to change gears of which it has none, but to adjust the regen, but there are none. Darlington tells me you can select different levels on a screen but that paddles are not right for this car but could be wheeled out should they do a more sporting EV in future. Personally I’d just rather have the choice.

The steering is fluid and supple, and as I manoeuvre this vast car around the various buildings between me and the track, I can feel the four-wheel steering shrinking its size. It deflects to six degrees, so not quite as far as a Range Rover, but enough I am told still to give it the turning circle of a Ford Focus.

On smooth surfaces the ride feels uncanny, leaving you feeling connected to, but entirely isolated from the road.

As the track opens up ahead of me, my foot goes down. I should say now the car was in comfort mode, the only one available on the day, and the map for the powertrain and chassis will be subtly but significantly different when ‘dynamic’ is selected, and there is an individual mode too which allows you to have dynamic chassis response with comfort powertrain or vice versa, but it won’t let you separate out damper and steering settings.

It surges forward. Jaguar engineers probably spend as much time talking about the way this car delivers its enormous power than anything else and you can see why. It doesn’t try to snap your neck at the first twitch of the toe. That sense of building to a crescendo I found back in the old XJ12-C is here too, only rendered on an entirely different plane of performance. My goodness this car is rapid, but it is majestically, not startlingly so, and the distinction is crucial. It’ll probably cost them a tenth or two on the 0-60mph time (though with all that software doubtless the car will recognise when launch control is selected so will maybe override its instincts always to provide an elegant kind of performance and dump it all in your lap), but there’s no question it’s the right approach to take, frankly for any EV in my view, let alone one with a brief like this.

It feels to me that it reaches 140mph in about the same time it takes the XJ12-C to reach perhaps half that speed, and despite going twice as fast and wearing all that noisy camo, it’s a great deal quieter too. We’d be thundering along now were there any thunder, but the ‘sound design’ of this car (for which there will be no choice other than to have it switched on or off) has not been signed off yet so is notable only for its absence and I expect none the worse for that. I really can’t see the harm in allowing punters to be accompanied by the mellow tones of a gently woofling V12 and I’d take that over any electronic drone all day and night long, but silence is good too.

That 80mph curve is approaching again and let’s just say that on this lap I take it to be merely an advisory with which to be complied or otherwise as the driver sees fit. It sweeps through magnificently and is back deep into three figures by the exit but once more it’s not what it does that’s important here. At least by modern standards you can feel the car lean into the corner but without any sense of lurch. Jaguar decided to retain passive anti-roll bars where active ones could have ensured no roll at all, but that wouldn’t have been Jaguar. With thin, hollow bars at each end, working in conjunction with air springs and adaptive dampers the roll rate is deftly controlled, which feels pure and reassuring because it’s what the car wants to do, rather than being forced into an unnatural state by heavy-handed electronic intervention. At high speed, this car is magnificent.

At lower speeds, it is a little less so. Flinging it through some tight corners, you are always aware of its size, mass and wheelbase, despite the best efforts of both the rear-steer and genuine active rear-axle torque vectoring to mitigate the effects. I’d not call it cumbersome and Norman would approve of its ability to maintain your chosen line, but those who had hoped for a truly sporting Jaguar will have to wait a little longer, because while this is an enjoyable, satisfying and rewarding car to drive, it is no more a sports car than was the old XJ that inspired it. You can also feel the steering rack change ratio as you come off centre, a few degrees either side being slower and intended to promote straight line stability before you get into the meat of it. I’d not even flag it as a criticism just yet and would need more time on real roads to know even how I felt about it. But it’s there.

I’m more convinced that the low-speed ride requires further attention before the car is signed off for good in May. It’s a horrible task making any air sprung car soak up the lumps and bumps of everyday life, and I can only imagine how much more so it is with the unsprung mass of its enormous Pirelli-shod standard 23in rims, and while the car can convincingly obliterate the same transverse ridges that rendered the XJ12-C briefly but entirely aquiver, on more complex rough surfaces you don’t just hear the pitter-patter, you can feel it too and more than I expected.

As I said earlier, you’ll find no attempt at a verdict here, definitive or otherwise, for to deliver one on a car as unfinished as this operating in so restricted an environment would be ludicrous. But I can say this: so far at least talk of the XJ12-C being its true inspiration is more than just that: it is borne out absolutely in the driving experience, and the way it delivers its power and addresses the competing requirements of both ride and handling are not just convincing, far more importantly they feel very Jaguar too.

So far, then, I think I can call it a job well done, but it probably won’t be until the end of the year before we find out if the considerable promise shown by this prototype can be converted into the world-class excellence the production car will need to exhibit from stem to stern if it is to have any hope of securing the future of the once proud marque whose name it bears. It’s going to be a long wait, so let’s hope that, when the time comes for a proper appraisal, it turns out to have been worth it.