New Small Jaguar – Not before 2016

New Small Jaguar - but not before a new XF

We’ve discussed the replacement for the Jaguar X-Type – dubbed the New Small Jaguar – almost endlessly over the last year or two.

Which with both the Jaguar XF and the Jaguar XJ replacing cars that were good but really didn’t sell, and turning them in to contenders for the top-spot in their sectors, a replacement for the X-Type is of huge interest.

We had thought – in fact Jaguar had thought – that the plan  to replace the X-Type was a high priority. A year ago Jaguar told us that they were “investigating the opportunity for a smaller Jaguar (below XF)”.

More recently Adrian Hallmark said that Jaguar are just at the start of the process for the small saloon, so it is probably four years off, which moved the goalposts a little from Jaguar’s stance last year.

But now it seems that the New Small Jaguar has been put back further, in fact until after the next generation XF arrives in 2015. Which makes a lot of sense.

With cars getting bigger with every new iteration the new X-Type would have to be almost as big and refined as the current XF. Which just wouldn’t do at all. So Jaguar first need to push the XF further upmarket to compete with the latest E-Class and 5-Series, and put clear air between it and a new small Jaguar.

It won’t just be a push upmarket either, as it should also finally be the expansion of the range we’ve long expected. We’d hoped that we would see an XF Estate (particularly an XFR Estate with 4WD), an XF Coupe and an XF Roadster in this generation of XF. We may have to wait until 2015 to see that.

But that range expansion on a bigger and more refined XF will leave the way clear for the new X-Type to hit the market in 2016.

By Cars UK