What's the news?
Are you the kind of fortunate soul who is currently weighing up the pros and cons of the Audi RS 6 Avant and Mercedes-Benz E 63 AMG Estate? Well Jaguar is about to add to your confusion when it reveals the XFR-S Sportbrake at the Geneva Motor Show. Featuring a supercharged 5.0-litre V8 engine, the new car becomes the third member of the R-S family (after the XFR-S saloon and XKR-S) and it certainly seems to have the firepower to scare the German duo.
Exterior
Much of the XFR-S saloon's pumped up body styling has been carried directly over to the Sportbrake version, with the exception of the oversized rear wing. That would just look silly on an estate so a more discrete roof spoiler takes its place, but the Sportbrake does get deeper bumpers front and rear with a splitter to boost downforce at high speeds. This splitter is complemented by a rear diffuser that would not look out of place on a DTM car and deeper side sills that frame the 20-inch forged alloy wheels. Those rims are shod in specially developed Pirelli tyres that weigh in with 265/35 measurements up front and 295/30 at the rear.
XFR-S Sportbrake customers choose one of five colours for their ballistic estate car: Ultra Blue, Ultimate Black, Stratus Grey, Polaris White and Italian Racing Red.
Interior
Whichever exterior colour you choose this can be picked up inside with piping for the leather seats available in red, blue or ivory. The seats themselves are R-S embossed with Warm Charcoal leather trim centres and carbon effect leather on the figure hugging bolsters. The carbon effect continues to the doors and dashboard, which is finished on Dark Aluminium and wears its R-S badges with pride.
Mechanicals
Underneath the swooping roofline and large boot the XFR-S Sportbrake is much the same as its saloon counterpart. Both are powered by Jaguar's supercharged 5.0-litre V8 engine, which is good for 550hp and 680Nm of torque. This power gives the Sportbrake a 0-62mph time of 4.8 seconds, which is only 0.2 seconds slower than the saloon - despite weighing an extra 90kg. This can likely be attributed to revisions made to the eight-speed automatic transmission with the 'Quickshift' technology from the F-Type.
The new transmission will automatically blip the throttle on downshifts for smoother (and more interesting) gearchanges and also features a 'corner recognition' feature, which senses when the car is going through a bend and holds onto the gear for longer.
To cope with the extra weight of the Sportbrake, with much of it being over the back wheels, the rear suspension has been modified from that found on the saloon. Both rear spring rates and the adaptive damper tune have been revised, while the active electronic differential and Dynamic Stability Control are recalibrated to take the suspension changes into account.
Anything else?
The XFR-S Sportbrake will cost £82,495 when it goes on sale in April alongside the full, reworked XF range, which may include an XF R-Sport model, a car with a lot of the looks of the XFR-S but fitted with a 2.2-litre diesel engine.
Paul Healy - 25 Feb 2014
