Jaguar XF Sportbrake: Geneva 2012

Jaguar XF Sportbrake at Geneva

The Jaguar XF Sportbrake – Jaguar’s new XF Estate – has debuted officially at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show.

After an age of expectation that Jaguar would build an XF Estate, we finally got the XF Sportbrake revealed in its Twitter camouflage last year, and a full reveal (finally) about a week ago. But now we get the chance to see the XF Sportbrake in the flesh at Geneva - and it doesn’t disappoint.

The XF Sportbrake has the same wheelbase as the XF Saloon, but gets a shed bolted on the back and an extra 48mm of headroom in the back, despite which its proportions are just as appealing as the XF Saloon – perhaps even more so (we have a thing for good-looking estates).

The load capacity isn’t the biggest (if you want to move enormous brown furniture then you’ll need an E-Class Estate) but at 1675 litres with the seats down it’s competitive with the 5 Series Touring and A6 Avant – and better looking.

The load area is clever with rails and nets to keep whatever you’re transporting nicely anchored, and the use of the gloss black on the C-Pillars works probably better than on the XJ, even on the white show car.

Jaguar are adamant that this generation of XF will only get diesel engines – so no XFR Sportbrake or 4WD until the next XF – but that at least means the XF Sportbrake Diesel S will be on offer, which should be a cracking car.

We’re expecting the Jaguar XF Sportbrake to go on sale before the end of 2012, with prices around £2k or so more than the equivalent saloon.

(24 photos – click any thumbnail for full gallery)

By Cars UK