This beautiful sedan is our reward for the billions of dollars that the Ford Motor Company poured into Coventry’s moribund Jaguar before off loading the brand in 2008. Ford made a lot of mistakes with Jaguar, starting with buying it in the first place, although most of them related to applying Detroit’s rigid mind set to a company that was its antithesis. But in one respect Ford’s ingrained attitudes brought a major improvement. Jaguar manufacturing quality is better, even if the cars aren’t always up to the standard that their superb appearance implies. With increased reliability and an advanced aluminum structure, Jaguar XJ ought to have been our 2004 Design of the Year, except that it hewed so closely to revered 1968 shapes that few perceived the difference between the 2003 steel and 2004 aluminum cars. There’s no danger of that now.

The 2011 model is gloriously, magnificently different from the forty two year old XJ design template. It looks and is powerful, refined, and aerodynamic. It retains the aluminum structure of the previous model, picks up XF styling cues and has its own characteristics that will likely evolve further in succeeding generations, following the highly successful design program of Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons.

What Ian Callum and Julian Thomson have done with the XJ is exactly what Lyons did. They kept the double bump headlamp fairings, for instance, but they dropped the rounded rear roof, used for too long and cribbed by Chrysler for the LHS and innovated new forms. Their new upper design is good, but for the US its execution is week because our laws don’ t allow extremely dark backlight and rear door glass as is permitted in Europe. This explains why XJ D pillars are black and why some US buyers are choosing to have their D pillars painted body color instead. Either way the car’s profile whether in short or long wheelbase form is wonderfully sleek with its long roof.