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Jaguar Advanced Lightweight Coupe concept

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Research • Jaguar XJ Super V8

SPRING CITY, Penn. (CNN/Money) - When I drove a $90,000 Jaguar XJ Super V8 into a parking garage on the last day of its loan to me, I told the attendant that someone else would be picking it up later that morning. He had only one question:

"Does the manager know there's a tow truck coming?"

Some widely held beliefs about cars are hard to shake. And firmly lodged in the brain of just about everyone -- including those who know little or nothing about cars -- is the idea that "Jaguars break down a lot."

So I had to explain carefully to the attendant that the car would be driven out under its own power, just as I had driven it in.

Actually, Jaguar's build quality has improved enormously in recent years. In the most recent J.D. Power and Associates survey of initial quality, which measures "problems per 100 vehicles" Jaguar's initial quality ranked third after Lexus and Cadillac.

For more details and pictures of the Jaguar XJ Super V8, click here.

That's particularly remarkable given the poor quality and reliability rankings of European cars in recent surveys by Consumer Reports and J.D. Powers.

Jaguar did less well on Powers' most recent reliability survey however. In that measure of long-term quality, Jaguar came in below average, holding up better than Mercedes-Benz, but less well than BMW.

With sales faltering badly, Jaguar is taking steps to change the public perception of its brand and remind buyers that bad days are long gone. You'll be seeing evidence of this in the next few years as new models are introduced and old ones redesigned.

You can expect to future generations of Jaguars to look strikingly different from today's cars, according to Jaguar executives. The recently introduced Advanced Lightweight Coupe concept car offers hints of the changes to come. The replacement for the current Jaguar XK sports car will look very much like the Advanced Lightweight Coupe. Other cars will pick up on its styling cues.

In the meantime, cars like the XJ Super V8 are pushing Jaguar up the price scales.

Like the current Jaguar XJ, future Jags will be aluminum-bodied. Jaguar has hit on a good thing here. Aluminum is far more expensive than steel but it is also very light, offering improved gas mileage and notably better performance.

With the Super V8, Jaguar has taken an already expensive car, the long-wheelbase Jaguar XJ8L, added the 390-horsepower supercharged engine from the $76,000 XJR then dropped in luxury items, like the rear-seat DVD system and burled walnut tray tables from the Jaguar XJ Vanden Plas edition, which retails for about $71,000.

Think of it as getting the "large, with everything."

Sticker price: $89,995

I spent four days in the car driving my family around the small towns and suburbs outside Philadelphia. Driving the car was fantastic. Packing it for the trip was kind of a pain.

Because of its lightweight aluminum construction and high-powered engine, the Super V8 roared up and down hilly roads with ease. (It's top zero-to-sixty time is a flat five seconds, according to Jaguar.) Coming into a tight turn at the bottom of a hill, I braced myself to feel the weight of a big sedan trying to pull the car off the road. That feeling never came.

Instead, with its wide, grippy tires and light body, the car sailed around turn after turn like a kite on a string.

In the back seat, while my young son watched Richard Scarry's Busy Town on the back of my headrest, my wife called the ride quality a bit rough but not objectionable. The Super V8 has low-profile tires and performance-tuned suspension, so some road-feel in the seats isn't surprising.

The car's major weak point is storage. From the outside, the trunk looks ample. Inside, though, shopping bags don't have enough room to stand upright. The trunk has plenty of floor space, but it's very flat. The car's six-CD changer and DVD player are also situated behind a hinged panel in the trunk.

A Jaguar spokesperson blamed that on the need to balance the car's weight. But it's hard to believe that moving the DVD player to the dashboard would throw this big car off kilter.

Inside, center consoles in the front and back open to reveal more wafer-thin storage spaces. I had to keep my cell phone in my coat pocket.

For the 2006 model year, Jaguar will introduce XJ Super V8 Portfolio edition which is expected to sell for over $100,000. Besides still more horsepower and a few additional features, that one will have exposed aluminum side vents behind the front wheel wells. That particular item will be a design feature on all future Jags, according to executives with the company.

Overall, the XJ's main attraction is simply the abundance of standard goodies and, for those who prefer a British flair, the Jaguar personality. Perhaps, since I was driving, I was biased, but what the Super V8 made me want, more than anything, was the Jaguar XJR.

You can have the burled walnut tray tables and DVD player. I'll save $15,000 and just take aluminum body, engine and suspension. That would be just fine.

For more details and pictures of the Jaguar XJ Super V8, click here.

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