New Jaguar XJ kicks off with best sales in class

The new Jaguar XJ tops the sales charts in June

It’s taken a while; that’s for sure. We expected to see the new Jaguar XJ in showrooms before the end of 2009. Except for the XJ Supersports which was going to be March 2010. But Christmas and New Year came and went, as did Easter.

We finally discovered that Jaguar had delayed the release of the new XJ until May to make sure they’d exorcised the gremlins in the connectivity features on the new big Cat. So it was well in to May before XJs started to hit showrooms and driveways in the UK, with June being the first full month we can get sales numbers for.

And it’s a flying start for Jaguar. They managed to outsell both the Mercedes S Class (by 38%) and the BMW 7 Series (by a whopping 70%) with a total of 295 Jaguar XJs off to owners. Which after all the delays must have put a smile on the faces at Gaydon.

We’ve just spent a week with the new XJ (look out for our XJ review and road test next week) and we can tell you that these sales numbers are just the start. We’ve been telling anyone who’s criticized the design of the new XJ in the year since we first saw it to wait and see it in the flesh before they pass judgement. It is a stunner. As Richard Madeley said yesterday in his owner’s review of the new XJ, it’s like a crouched panther.

And the more people see it, the more sales Jaguar will make.

By Cars UK