Jaguar World Magazine XK8 Project completed Feb 2009 Edizione posteriore

The delights that are Christmas deadlines
mean that I’m sitting down to write these
words in mid-December, yet the earliest
date you will be reading them will be
9 January. So, if Jaguar has announced its return
to F1 in the interim – I apologise for having
missed it in this issue. However, given the current
economic climate, the sight of pigs formation
flying through the night sky in pursuit of dodos
is more likely…
That’s not to say Jaguar has had a bad 2008,
far from it in fact. The early part of the year saw the
success of the international XF launch in the US
cemented by the even more successful European
launch of the car. The latter was particularly crucial
as it introduced the diesel-engined XF to the world’s
buying public, and it is this model that has secured
the bulk of sales since then. In 2008 around 80 per
cent of all UK Jaguar XF sales were for the diesel
model – and they sold in good numbers too, which
was great news since the onset of the credit crunch
saw sales of the XJ and XK slow.
Despite the tough times for Jaguar’s two most
expensive models, the success of the XF and a
rejuvenated post-facelift X-TYPE meant that the
latest figures available as this issue closed for press
showed that, year on year to the end of November,
Jaguar’s overall UK 2008 sales were still up by 9.78
per cent. But, amidst persistent rumours of imminent
government loans to UK car manufacturers, Jaguar
Land Rover amongst them (see page 8), those
last figures also contained a warning. For the first
time in several months, the figures for November
showed a decline in Jaguar registrations compared
to the same month in 2007. Though some of that
change in fortunes may have been due to customers
waiting for the reduction in VAT to come into effect,
times are certainly tough for all manufacturers at the
moment, and particularly for Land Rover.