Tag: Jaguar

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Cars

Global Four Wheel Drive

Last one decade we heard this phrase all the time, “global warming.” I am not going to discuss about this here. But I noticed something a bit interesting!
During last one decade, automotive firms started to offer something quite opposite to global warming, four wheel drive option for passenger vehicles. As we all know that, global warming means there will be warmer weather and less snow! This means, we don’t need four wheel drive, single axle traction will be adequate.
Interestingly, automotive firms thought totally something else and started to expand the four wheel drive option across the whole passenger vehicle range. Especially Mercedes and BMW did this very well! You can have four wheel drive option nearly in each model.
Honestly I really like the four wheel drive passenger vehicles, there are more stable and you don’t have to worry about any adverse weather condition.
In reality, we still have very tough winter and lots of snow all over the world. Actually in some countries, there were enormous amount snows. As a result of this very noticeable condition, the demand for four wheel passenger cars increased! Because, people feel more confident when they have traction on four wheels.
My advice from this condition, Jaguar should not focus on an SUV model. Instead of this, they should focus on four wheel drive option in XF and XJ models. I know you will say, there was an X-Type with four wheel drive. But the X-Type was the worst thing ever happened to Jaguar, and it was based on a Ford Mondeo and it was front wheel drive and it was not that good either. So, current vehicle range of Jaguar is more suitable for four wheel drive.
Mercedes calls four wheel drive system as 4MATIC and BMW calls it xDrive. Audi already had the Quattro for very long time.
PS: Four wheel drive option in Mercedes and BMW may not able available in right hand drive models!
 
For more information please visit the German website of Mercedes and BMW
 

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Cars

Cabin crew take off position !

Paris Motor Show 2010 became an important event for brands like Jaguar. Especially being top news on Financial Times for their unknown future, Paris Motor Show is a great opportunity to show that Jaguar is back to business again.
Actually the way they are back is also very interesting, because they revealed a concept vehicle which is producing 780 horse powers with four electric engines and enough amount torque to change the world’s orbit. Like many of you I guessed this car has a shorter range than a remote control car. 780 horse powers from electric engines is something really unusual, you have to tow a power plant all the time. But Jaguar’s engineers found a solution that is weird also! Turbine power for producing electricity. C-X75 only offers around 75 km with batteries and that’s really reasonable. But the minimalist turbines are capable of burning anything! Diesel, LPG, petrol, natural gas, ethanol and anything which can be burnable. And reaching top speed of 350 kph! To reach 100 kph it only needs 3,4 seconds and that’s really quick for a car which runs with everything.
I am pretty sure that many people would like to have this car. It runs with everything, you are not limited with any type of fuel, you can put what is available. Actually which is cheaper! And you have chance to rev up to 80 000 rpm but they are turbines, you will be making noise similar to an Airbus.
I did not like the car that much, especially the design. May be we got use to see supercars from Ferrari and Lamborghini and when a new model comes up we always judge with those measures.
And this is the first time for a car to have propulsion system and gas turbines !
 
Technical Specifications
Propulsion System & Transmission
Electric motor Four 145kW (195bhp) traction motors (580kW/780bhp total)
Generator Two switched reluctance generators
Range Extender power 2 x 70kW (94bhp) gas micro-turbines (140kW/188bhp total)

Batteries Lithium-ion

Total Battery Capacity (kWh) 19.6
Transmission Single-speed
Final Drive Ratio 3.1:1



Pictures’ Copyrights
Jaguar

Categories
Fashion

The best driving shoes on worst carpets !?!

Shoes, one of the biggest business on earth after iPhone! Both for men and women, it is important for completing your dress and change the way you look. Therefore, every brand is offering many different types of shoes and changing them every season. Except the Prada sneakers for men, they are the same for last two thousand years! And everyone knows that, if it was sold by a company cold Mrada, nobody would ever buy it. Let’s back to shoes.
Recently my favourite magaine GQ UK, announced top nine (I don’t know why nine not ten) driving shoes which you can buy on their website. For men only! Why? If they try to find driving shoes for ladies the list will be like this; ankle boots, ballet flats, boots, clog sandals, closed-toe slip-ons, combat boots, flip flops, high-heeled boots, high-heeled sandals, high-top sneakers, laced shoes, mules, platform pumps, platform sandals, pumps with open toe, sandals, shoe boots, slingbacks, slip-on sneakers, sneakers, wedges, beach sandals, espadrilles, round toe, point toe, peep toe (List is from Yoox.com and Net-A-Porter.com). As you could see the list is more confusing than a working schema of a hydrogen car! Even the hundreds of fashion magazines cannot solve this problem on their every issue it is a good idea to decide which women shoes are best for driving.
As expected GQ UK focused men driving shoes which is more easier to pick. Actually six months ago they selected best driving shoes from Kurt Geiger with pink colour, this is a totally different issue :) This time nine different shoes are selected placed on nine different car carpets. However there was a small problem. The carpet and the shoes did not match.
If you have lots of money, if you will change your car and then change your shoes !?! I don’t know but for now, I consider it like this. The first shoes is from UK brand Bill Amberg and this is the first I heard this brand. I guess they thought, if you buy a blue Mini Cooper this shoes will match the colour of your car. And from the carpet we can see that clearly. And if you will not buy a blue Mini Cooper, don’t buy these.
The next one is from Kurt Geiger with ridiculous colour on Mercedes AMG carpet. So the GQ suggested that; if you buy a enormously powered Mercedes AMG like SL65 AMG, you have to buy these shoes! Try to buy something else.
Our next shoes is from Giorgio Armani on unknown carpet. My recommendation for these shoes is Lamborghini. As the Armani brand is always highlighted its logo on their every product and it becomes impossible to ignore it by everyone, so you have to be driving something which cannot be ignored by everyone. Buy a Lamborghini :)
Red Hugo Boss shoes on Chevrolet plastic carpet. Oh come on! Where did you find this carpet from the Hummer (Hummer was a brand of Chevrolet) which you rented for your birthday! This is the most combination GQ ever made on man history. From this pictures, I can only recommend one car. Red coloured Mercedes C Class Estate, not a sedan model a proper estate model.
Finally GQ matched the shoes with the car. Tod’s from Italy and carpet from German Porsche, great combination. Porsche 911 Turbo, nothing to say more.
Car Shoe from Italy but with Land Rover !?! From the colour the shoes, they should have tried Range Rover instead. At least it looks more sophisticated, any with this colour nothing looks sophisticated :)
Salvatore Ferragamo, the brand which I adore the most! I cannot even pronounce the brand properly, unless you are Italian you cannot pronounce it properly. And GQ put on Lexus carpet. Great creativity. There is one car for this brand Maserati. It can be Quattroporte or GranTurismo, no problem. But not a Lexus which is advertising its faulty recalls on websites.
Gucci and Jaguar, great coupling. White Gucci shoes with Jaguar. I think there is no problem with this combination until the time white Guccis turn into white gray black Gucci.
And lastly and the worst combination. Paul Smith and Chevrolet !?! Come on, again the Hummer carpet. How did you emerge this emotional relationship with the Hummer !?! Paul Smith is a great brand with excellent and clever creativity on their products, okay this time it is not that good looking with this colour. But it still deserve to be coupled with an Aston Martin, instead of Chevrolet something!
Pictures Copyrights;
GQ Magazine, Aston Martin, Mini, Land Rover, Jaguar, Maserati, Mercedes, Lamborghini and Net-A-Porter

 
 
 
Categories
Cars

Smaller Maserati!

German cars, they are the reflection of perfection. On their every bit, you can see their precisely calculated angles, perfectly designed fittings, easy to use state of art technology and a bit boredom! Exactly, Germans are built too seriously (by Clarkson) every kind of details, possibilities is designed in their ultra hygiene marketing department and precisely calculated and measured the competitors reaction. Technically; Mercedes, BMW or Audi have no weakness. From this point of view, we can consider anyone who is blond, tall and female as Karolina Kurkova! So this perspective is not working very well all time.
If you wish to buy a car on E Segment, you will end with Mercedes E Class, BMW 5 Series, Audi A6 and Jaguar XF. All of these cars are excellent, they offer very different type of driving pleasure and comfort with wide range of engine options. Actually, they all have at least three pages of option lists. Heated seats, cooled seats, memory seats for driver, memory seats for passenger, automatic boot lid, iPod connection and many more! However, they lack of soul a bit. Okay, Jaguar can be excluded but still I cannot find an emotional motivation to jump on these cars. Mercedes E63 AMG, BMW M5, Audi RS6 and Jaguar XFR are the most powerful and great cars to drive. You will have lots of emotional power to buy them but again, you can see a E200 CDi diesel on street or an Audi A6 2,0 TDi manual! Jaguar is not offering small engines, not yet.
From this very accurately made analyses, I can say that there should be an Italian car on this segment. And there is going to be one! Small Maserati Quattroporte in 2015. Yes, we have to wait five more years for it. Probably, Maserati is testing the prototypes in the middle of nowhere right now. After 2015, this segment will not be the same again. The exquisite, the sexy, the mozzarella powered small Maserati will be on earth. I am not expecting similar sales performance like Germans and it will probably be more expensive but it deserves. And most probably, this Maserati will not be offering night vision camera or cross wing stability control or some other “I want to grab more money” options but it will have its soul of essence.
Pictures are taken from;
Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Maserati and Mercedes Websites
Categories
Cars

Forgotten beauty, VW Phaëton

Phaëton; for many of you this word does not mean anything, or you just remember something but that’s not clear! Phaëton is coming Greek Mythology, however VW decide to honour this mythological value with a car which cannot be remembered by many people. VW Phaëton is similar to brands which were forgotten in department stores. Places like Harvey Nichols, Harrods, Saks Fifth Avenue or Selfridges there are millions of brands and we cannot even remember many of them after we left the store. Sometimes those brands which cannot be remembered might be the best designed one. Like in automotive business, fashion business has its emperors and anything new to this jungle has to do much to gain a place!
In Phaëton case things are bit different! It was not the fault of Phaëton, it was being badged as VW. Unlike contemporary fashion brands, VW is very well known but its product is suffering to be forgotten. Unfortunately, VW brand is not perceived like Mercedes for luxury segment, therefore people don’t consider this as an option to buy. However this forgotten car had always very remarkable design, now with the face lift it became one of the best designed car on its segment. Actually, it is much better looking that Audi A8, sorry!
F Segment cars; Mercedes S Class, BMW 7 Series, Maserati Quattroporte, Jaguar XJ and Audi A8 are the players in this segment. As you can imagine, competition is really tough! Similar to haute coutre business! As you expected the king of this market is Mercedes S Class, despite it looks too traditional many people still adore this car. Maserati Quattroporte is the playboy car of this segment, actually this is the only car which has a proper soul in it. But it does not offer the sophisticated toys like in Mercedes. And we know the Jaguar, it is Jaguar :) Audi A8 is trying everything to compete with BMW and Mercedes but it does not have so much competitive power but there are many people who loves it. And honestly, A8 is very good car.
The Phaëton, I don’t know why since it was first revealed I liked this car. There was something different in this car, may be it was the new car in this segment, may be its unique technologies like human friendly climate control. But it could not compete with its rivals and became a icon for VW.
However the new facelifted model is totally something different. Actually it is more than face lift, this Phaëton look gorgeous! Especially the production quality inside is superb and the front grille is exquisite. Also it has many technologies put inside.
I think if you wish to buy something different and reliable, you should check Phaëton! It is really worth every word. Like the brand which we forgot in department store :)
Audi A8
BMW 7 Series
Mercedes S Class
Maserati Quattrporte
Jaguar XJ
Pictures are taken from;
Mercedes, BMW, Audi, VW, Jaguar and Maserati Websites
Categories
Cars

Two foreigners in forbidden city, Jaguar & Land Rover

In 2008, Ford started to sell everything under its brand. Land Rover and Jaguar were one of the toughest sales at that time. As the Land Rover was very profitable, Jaguar was losing blood all the time and no body was looking forward to buy Jaguar! However, Ford packages them together as a promotion and whoever buys Land Rover was going to have Jaguar free!
At the same time, Tata was looking for automotive brands to expands its automotive division. However they were reluctant to buy Jaguar as you can imagine the reason! Tata decided to buy Jaguar and Land Rover after they see the potential demand on Jaguar XF model which was introduced  before the deal.
Now, Tata decided to move Land Rover and Jaguar production plants to China. And it will be the second foreign brand to be built in China after Volvo. However, unlike in any other business product of origin play significant role in luxury automotive industry. And mainly Land Rover was using this as an important asset to compete with Germans. After this decision, Land Rover and Jaguar’s reputation might be adversely affected. Also in Chinese market, it may not receive the same demand as the brands are produced in China!
It is a very complicated decision to make. And I can see why Tata is trying to move it production plant outside of UK, but they should focus on East European countries to minimize the damage on product of origin. Producing Land Rover and Jaguar in China and selling to China may not have the same impact as exporting from UK.
Pictures are taken from;
Land Rover, Jaguar Websites
Categories
Cars

Touch me! Jaguar

Fabric experts are able to understand the quality of fabric just by touching them. To understand the quality of a fabric, you have to touch! You don’t have many alternatives. And that’s something very usual. However, Jaguar XF something common with that. I know that XF is not a brand new car but many people do not know its interesting feature of touching everything.
This car’s interior is an engineering show. Engine start button flashes like pulse, gear knob raises from the dash, air vent are opened when air condition is on. The interesting bits are the touching parts :) Yes, you have to touch some place to open or activate them. The navigation screen is touch screen and that’s very common. However, touch sensing glove box is something totally unexpected. Unlike other cars, in Jaguar XF you just need to touch or drag your finger like in iPhone! And glove box opens. It is the same with interior lights, there is not button to press. You just touch the light and it is on! Sounds like Star Trek technology. I didn’t have chance to experience these things while driving but I don’t think that anyone is annoyed with touch focused interior.
Like understand the quality of fabric, to understand the technology of a car sometimes we have to touch!
Categories
Cars

Katerina Stikoudi is washing a car :) – Κατερίνα Στικούδη είναι το πλύσιμο αυτοκινήτων

If you are not Cypriot or Greek, you won’t probably know who is Katerina Stikoudi. She won the title Miss Hellas in 2005 and she represented Greece in Miss World. She is currently hosting TV programme Mega Star in Mega TV in Greece. And also she has a video clip with Lava called Tora.
Accidently I found a video of her in Mega Star programme. This is something very usual but the interesting thing; she was washing and filling up cars. But the problem is, she is washing a pre-historic, ancient Jaguar XJ. Production team picked up the worst car to wash! And also she was cleaning the wind screen of a Peugeot 206 CC and filling up with petrol. Then a guy comes with a Citroën C2 with plastic wheel covers!
Elaa reee! You found the worst cars to appear on TV! Jaguar XJ is classic but too classic! My opinion; she should be washing up a Maserati GranTurismo, for cleaning the wind-screen Jaguar XF and instead of C2 they should have used a Alfa Romeo MiTo. These cars will complete the sexiness ;)
In Greek;
Αν δεν είναι Κύπριοι της Ελληνικής, δεν θα έχετε ίσως γνωρίζουν ποιος είναι Κατερίνα stikoudi. Κέρδισε τον τίτλο Μις Ελλάς το 2005 και εκπροσώπησε την Ελλάδα στη Μις Κόσμος. Είναι φιλοξενεί σήμερα τηλεοπτικών προγραμμάτων Mega Star στο Mega τηλεόραση στην Ελλάδα. Και επίσης έχει ένα βίντεο κλιπ με Lava ονομάζεται Tora.

Κατά λάθος βρήκα ένα βίντεο από της στο πρόγραμμα Mega Star. Αυτό είναι κάτι πολύ συνηθισμένο, αλλά το ενδιαφέρον πράγμα? Ήταν πλύσιμο και γεμίζει αυτοκίνητα. Αλλά το πρόβλημα είναι, αυτή είναι το πλύσιμο των προ-ιστορικό, αρχαία Jaguar XJ. Παραγωγή αυξήθηκε το χειρότερο αυτοκίνητο να πλένεται! Και επίσης, ήταν η οθόνη καθαρισμού αέρα ενός Peugeot 206 CC και γεμίζουν με βενζίνη. Στη συνέχεια, έρχεται ένας τύπος με ένα C2 Citroën με πλαστικό τιμόνι καλύπτει!

 
ELAA reee! Βρήκατε το χειρότερο αυτοκίνητα για να εμφανιστεί στην τηλεόραση! Jaguar XJ είναι κλασικό αλλά πολύ κλασικό! Η γνώμη μου? Αυτή θα πρέπει να είναι το πλύσιμο μια Maserati GranTurismo, για τον καθαρισμό του ανεμοθώρακα Jaguar XF και αντί του C2 θα πρέπει να έχουν χρησιμοποιήσει Alfa Romeo Mito. Αυτά τα αυτοκίνητα θα ολοκληρώσει την sexiness ;)

Categories
Cars

Jaguar’s and Bentley’s common part!

Jaguar and Bentley are the most sophisticated brands of British automotive industry. These two brands are reflection of social status, welfare and wealth. Especially driving a Bentley is reflecting your social status in crystal clear quality. Jaguar is not sharing the same segmentation with Bentley but it is also an icon of social status.
Their common part is the aerial radio antenna! Yes, very ridiculous but they share antenna from 1980s. When the Jaguar XK first introduced, they did not use a modern antenna for radio. The antenna which they used was rising when the radio is switched on and lowered when the radio is switched off, 1980s technology. After a couple years later, they have replaced with a modern one which does not go up and down. However, Bentley stuck on this antenna and it is still offering it on Azure and Brooklands models. I have no idea why the Bentley is doing something like this! Jaguar was suffering financial problems and this antenna was one of the cost saving options. But Bentley? It is owned by Volkswagen and they have lots of money. I really wonder why they used this kind of prehistoric antenna?
Pictures are from;
Bentley Website
My collection
Categories
Cars

Rely on me

Thanks you my Dell XPS M1330 which tends to break down every five months! Using this kind of laptop forced me to find alternatives to replace my Dell XPS! And I found Samsung for a replacement. However the interesting thing about Samsung was not its size or weight. It was the advertisement :)
9 hours battery life was mentioned by travelling from Paris to Barcelona. Three minutes of advertisement is mainly taken inside Jaguar XK but not the new, the old one! During this trip, Samsung X420 provides 9 hours of battery power and the girl did not get bored. And the advertisement gives the message, “you can rely on me”. The interesting thing in the advertisement was not the battery life of the laptop, it was the reliability of Jaguar. Unfortunately, Jaguar’s are not considered as very reliable cars but it did not show any trace of problem :) Actually, a Maserati GranTurismo or new Jaguar XK would fit better than the old Jaguar!
Here is the video of this advertisement;