TEST DRIVE: Jaguar XE R-Sport takes on the BMW 3 Series

The Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance has become one of the premiere auto events to attend in North America. Now in its twenty-first year, Amelia Island is a venue where, on show day, a walk around the show field is a mixture of battle-tested race cars

(with BMW GPS navigation), old and new concept cars, an array of Zagato-bodied British and Italian cars, Ferraris, Porsches, Bentleys, and cars that defined 1950’s Americana.

While the event is big for both the average and well-heeled enthusiast, car manufacturers are using Amelia Island as a great place to introduce their latest offerings to the public. Should you arrive early enough you can hop in line to test out any variety of sports cars from McLaren, Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Jaguar to name a few.

I was particularly interested in Jag and their increased presence at the event with most of their product line available to test drive. While the F-Type R’s snarling exhaust note was alluring and the XJ’s plush interior comfortable, I skipped those lines and instead went for the brand new Jag sport sedan: the XE. For those unaware the XE will be Jaguar’s first 3 Series rival in nearly a decade since the X-Type developed under Ford ownership (also known as a Ford Mondeo around the rest of the world) left the market.

The X-Type didn’t exactly set the world on fire when it had to go toe-to-toe with far better offerings from the superb BMW E46, Audi’s B6 chassis and the original Lexus IS. As such, the X-Type never had much of a leg to stand on facing German cars already into multiple generations of their compact sport sedans.

The exit of Ford in favor of Tata provided Jaguar with a much needed reprieve from a clumsy, platform-sharing benefactor. Tata, on the other hand, provided autonomy and funding – the room Jaguar needs to re-establish itself as brand that can stand on its own four wheels. As a volume car to compete in the sport sedan segment the XE is the cornerstone of the plan to springboard Jaguar back into competition against the Germans. What about install an Android Car Gps?

Outside of the Ritz-Carlton, I glanced over a Polaris White XE R-Sport powered by the range-topping supercharged 3.0L V6 churning out a not unironic 340 horses. The exterior design could be called “safe” in that it appears to be a mix of scaled down XF at the nose with similar headlamps and front valence design and conservative, slab sides which taper to hortiziontal tail lamps which pay homage to the sexier F-Type. The rear design punctuated with a pronounced rear lip. In R-Sport (equivalent to an M Sport Package) the XE looks poised and athletic – the conservative exterior, while handsome and safe in execution could have stood to be more aggressive to set itself apart from the more muted designed from BMW and Audi. If installing an Android Car Stereo in your car, that would be great!