2005 Jaguar Super V8, the Superlative XJ8 - Automobile Magazine
The best all-around luxury car on the market is the Audi A8L, but it's a machine that you admire rather than love. Instead, I'd choose the long wheelbase Jaguar XJ8 with the supercharged V-8 engine option. The Audi is an almost flawless package: a beautiful interior, a super powertrain, dramatic looks, and sensational ground-covering ability. ) The interior looks like a generic Britcar-wood and leather and wool-but without the touches that make British cars so special. Sure, the gloss black surround for the navigation screen is cool, and the rubber/chrome wheels for the air vents, the picnic tables in the back of the front seats, and the chrome trim around the power window lifts are nice, but much of the plastic... Yet in use, you forgive the Jag these faults, because it has some of the most intuitive controls on a modern luxury car. The audio, HVAC, and navigation actuation via the touch screen is so simple, even I can do it. The laser cruise control makes the 7-series and S-class versions look dumb. The rear-seat DVD/info center is superb, and my six-year-old twins delighted in the individual screens in the back of the front seat headrests. The XJ8 doesn't look as special as Jags of yore, yet by adding five inches onto the wheelbase, the LWB version looks a lot classier, more elegant, and more finished, as if the carmaker started with this one and then chopped the wheelbase for the... Source: www.automobilemag.com
