Jaguar XF Sportbrake (2012) first official pictures

This is the new Jaguar XF Sportbrake, the long-awaited estate version of Jaguar’s XF. The new Jaguar XF Sportbrake will be unveiled at the 2012 Geneva motor show in March 2012. 

From the B-pillar backwards the XF Sportbrake is new, and it culminates in XJ-style blacked-out rear pillars, as predicted by CAR.

The Sportbrake’s wheelbase is identical to the XF saloon's, but there’s an additional 48mm of headroom for rear passengers thanks to the new body. The rear seats split and fold and feature a ski hatch, and there’s 550 litres of carrying capacity with the seats up, and 1675 litres when they’re folded flat.

That can’t match the cavernous 695 (seats up) and 1950 litres (seats down) of the Mercedes E-class Estate, but it compares favourably with the 560/1670 litres of the BMW 5-series Touring and 565/1680 litres of the Audi A6 Avant.

The XF Sportbrake is a paltry 5mm longer than the XF saloon, but with the seats folded flat there’s 1970mm of uninterrupted load space, while the boot is also 1064mm wide.

The tailgate can be optioned with a fully electric opening and closing function, a towbar (complete with trick electronics to stop your trailer snaking) is also an option, and every XF Sportbrake comes with self-levelling air suspension and Jaguar’s Adaptive Dynamics continuously variable dampers as standard.

Away from the practical end of the Sportbrake, this XF estate adopts the styling (including the ‘J-Blade’ LED daytime running lights) that appeared on the facelifted XF in 2011. And behind those lights and under the bonnet is a choice of Jaguar’s 2.2-litre four-cylinder diesel, or the twin-turbo 3.0-litre V6 diesel in standard and top-spec ‘S’ guises. All models uses an eight-speed automatic to drive the rear wheels, the 2.2 features stop/start, and the XF Diesel S has 271bhp and 442lb ft.

All the existing trim levels should be present and correct, from an SE version of the 2.2, via Luxury and Premium Luxury, to the top-spec Portfolio. There are also two optional exterior design packages: the Aero Pack (standard on the ‘S’ model, the silver car in the pictures) features a deeper front bumper, sides sills, an aggressive rear bumper, and a rear spoiler; and the Black Pack swaps chrome exterior highlights for gloss back trim and black wheels.

With purely diesel power the Sportbrake is designed solely for sale in Europe, and Jaguar hopes the second bodystyle will increase XF sales by around 20%, to nearly 20,000 units per year. The XF Sportbrake should carry a £2k-£3k premium over the XF saloon, so the cheapest Sportbrake should cost around £32k when sales start in autumn 2012.

By Ben Pulman