When further questioned about it, he said he had a “strong view about it,” which left little doubt as to whether the car would be given the green light.
We now have the first semi-official details that suggest Jaguar is at least working on a new concept vehicle to be called the C-XE. The British carmaker has registered several new trademarks with the UK Intellectual Property Office. The names include the aforementioned ‘C-XE’, the production version ‘XE’, and the concept version of the next-generation XJ saloon, aptly named the ‘C-XJ’. All three names were grouped in the ‘Land Motor Vehicles’ section of the registry.
The introduction of a concept version for the next XJ saloon is not unexpected – the car is due in 2010 and test-mules have already been spotted at the Nurburgring – but confirmation that Jaguar is working on a new XE model is certainly interesting.
While it’s still too early to confirm if the C-XE will be a preview of a new E-Type successor, most reports have speculated that Jaguar’s newest model will be a lightweight sports car. Jaguar even previewed such a car back in 2000 when it rolled out the original F-Type Concept.
It caused so much excitement that the project was immediately given the green light but that was before the carmaker’s well-documented sales slump. All of a sudden, plans for an exotic flagship like the F-Type were dropped in favor of the mass market X-Type sedan.
The latest rumor is that Jaguar is working on a two-seater sports car based on a shortened XJ platform and powered by the same naturally aspirated and supercharged V8 engines found in the XF range.
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