Big cats are amongst the most endangered animals in the world, shrinking habitat, human hunting and diminishing prey have driven many big cats to the brink of extinction. For the Jaguar car company, there are many parallels. The last forty years have seen Britain’s most recognizable brand living on various forms of life support.
Known for producing sinewy, beautiful designs that rank amongst the most beautiful cars ever conceived, the Jaguar has also developed a reputation of being befuddled by quality issues and electronics that bordered on schizophrenic. The outside of Jaguars, from the days when the company was still the Swallow Side Car company, have always been covetous curves wrapping around hand stitched leather interiors accented with hand rubbed walnut wood.
There was a time when Jaguar exemplified performance as well. In the 1950s the XK 120, the C and D type racers and, later, the E type road cars were technical marvels. The C type introduced the disc brake to racing at the 24 hours of Le Mans and drivers like Phil Hill and Sterling Moss drove them to victories all over the world.
In the early eighties it seemed that Jaguar was about to become extinct again. After being nationalized by the British government into the notorious British Leland colossus, Jaguar emerged as one of the only UK car marquees to survive the 70s. After riding a boom in American sales in the early 1980s, Jaguar was a bloated, inefficient nightmare and began losing roughly $50 million dollars a year until the Ford Premium division bought the company for $2.5 billion.
When Ford paid $2.5 billion dollars for a perennial money pit like Jag, it was at a time when the car business was flush with cash. At Ford the Taurus and new Ford Explorer were fueling sales and excess on Wall Street helped ignite a Detroit bidding war pitting Ford’s Don Peterson against General Motors’ Roger Smith as they bought marquee brands around the world. When the smoke cleared Ford owned Aston Martin, Land Rover and Jaguar and the GM finance people were breathing a huge sigh of relief that they didn’t win.
Just after buying Jaguar, the stock and real estate markets collapsed and the American market for Jaguar’s sedans declined right along with it. Ford found themselves with a brand that had issues even Dr. Phil couldn’t solve. When the sale closed it was said Ford paid $500 million for the stake and $2 billion for the sizzle and the Ford family and board of directors fired Peterson. Stuck with an asset they didn’t want, Ford had to figure out what to do.
The new Jaguar XF is really the end result of Ford’s attempt to turn a bushel of lemons into lemonade. By the time the XF Sedan hit the road, Ford had sold Jaguar and Land Rover to the India based up-and-coming corporation called Tata. The money from the deal helped Ford avoid having to follow GM and Chrysler into government bailout and bankruptcy restructuring.
With upstart Tata rescuing Jaguar at a time that it has the best overall car line up in its history, the Indian company instantly went from the builder of the world’s cheapest car to the owner of an icon.
The Jaguar lineup now has the XJ and XK Series and the XF, a mid sized luxury sedan that competes wheel for wheel with German sport sedans like the BMW 5 series, the Mercedes E Class and Audi’s A6. Toss in Cadillac’s excellent CTS series and offerings from Acura, Lexus and Infiniti, and you get the idea this premium sedan category has quite a bit of competition. Now, for what could be the first time, Jaguar is one of the cars to beat rather than the one bringing up the rear.
The XF has every option you can think of including heated steering wheel, rear mounted parking assist camera, navigation aids, power everything and one of the sweetest sounding engines this side of a racetrack. At idle this big cat purrs quietly, but pushing the go stick deep into the floorboard produces a growl and wheel spinning power that launches the four door into traffic with neck snapping force.
There are so many electronic bits going on in the Jag that the options are a little cumbersome, one button turns off the Dynamic Stability and Traction Controls, another snugs up the suspension system to performance oriented specs, and slipping the shifter into sport mode alters the seven speed shift points upward on the rev range. All this results in a nimble pulse quickening rip through the countryside.
The shifter is unique. It rises out of the center console like a James Bond inspired weapon arming device and you rotate the chrome wheel to select Reverse, Drive or Sport mode. Actually there are so many electronic gadgets in this car it will be hard not to be impressed when you push the start button. There is no keyhole, though the car is equipped with a proximity key you keep in your pocket. When the car detects you entering it arms the system. Upon stepping on the brake pedal and pushing the starter, four vents rise up from the façade of the dash and the purring from under the hood entices you to go for a run.
The only issue I have from driving the car is from the steering wheel mounted paddle shifters. There is no lockout that prevents accidental usage of the manual shifter mode so occasionally I ended up brushing the lever and downshifting when I wasn’t expecting to. Other than that, the Jaguar is the equal to or better than any car in this crowded market segment.
Jaguar took its name from one of the big cats of Africa. The name was intended to exemplify nimble, quick and lethal and there are very few animals in the world that automatically reach deep into your DNA to produce flight or fight responses like the growl and roar of a big cat. I found this out first hand by taking the Jaguar out to Wyley’s In-Sync Exotics.
In-Sync is a licensed exotic cat rescue located on the southern edge of Lake Lavon where in less than a half an hour drive from Dallas you can see 42 of the most beautiful predators on the planet.
Unfortunately, some people think having an exotic animal like a tiger or leopard seems like a good idea. When they are kits, they are absolutely adorable but they do eventually grow into huge forces of nature. Most of the cats in residence have been either seized by the federal government or state agencies from people who are unqualified to own or are incapable of caring for the animals in their charge.
When they arrive, the cats are usually in desperate shape, missing hair and very sick. Some are the result of irresponsible breeders and everyone has a story. At the rescue the cats are cared for and brought back from near death in some cases. Long term health issues resulting from inbreeding and other issues like cancer and skin ailments are treated and the cats stay under the care of the facility for the remainder of their days.
Founded in 1991 as a non profit by Vicky Keahy, the shelter can consume over $10,000 per month in meat and veterinary bills. More than one of the big cats are undergoing chemotherapy and two of the tigers were being used as a breeding pair because both carried the genetic anomaly to produce white tigers. The previous owner bred them even though they were siblings because the exotic cat trade can be very profitable.
The deep purring from tigers, lions and cougars is an amazing sound to hear in suburban Texas. The gleaming emerald eyes of a puma staring at you on a Sunday afternoon is a sight you may never forget. The puma, mountain lion and cougar are all the same breed with just different names based on geography.
The caring staff knows the growl and roar of each animal. While being shown around the facility, a roar from one of the enclosures made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end. My guide said, “That is ‘Freddy Cougar’, he is one of the only cats here that has not been de-clawed. They almost always come in de-clawed because someone thought they would make good pets.” Or they didn’t want to run the risk of being swatted with a catcher’s mitt-sized paw equipped with five inch long, dagger sharp claws.
Freddy and his friends stalked silently behind two layers of chain link enclosures, the bottom of each embedded into concrete, their tops covered with more chain link to insure the potentially lethal residents don’t get out to cause trouble with the neighbors.
An animal like a tiger or African lion have evolved to be able to snap the spine of an antelope with a swat or chomp of their powerful jaws, and as the staff knows, they are to be treated with great caution. “Each of the cats has a primary caregiver who spends a lot of time with them, by doing so we are able to socialize them a little. By being in direct contact we can keep an eye out for problems and changes in behavior,” explained guide Lisa. Most of the staff and volunteers have some formal schooling in veterinary work, but they use a local large animal vet for most of the normal care for the cats.
When one of the charges requires more intensive treatment, the center will bring the cat to Texas A&M’s Veterinary Science center in College Station. Says Lisa, “They have all the expertise and equipment to handle doing an MRI on a 400 pound cat.”
As I drove the Jaguar away from the rescue the issues we humans have created for these beautiful animals weighed on my mind. The rescue is the result of a group of people believing they needed to do something to help and I applaud their efforts.
With Tata rescuing Jaguar from Ford, there are some interesting possibilities. The Indian company gains a great deal of respect in the automotive world and dealer network in the North American market. I think it will be a long time before they try and bring their other product to America, but when they do they’ll have an advantage.
The XF is beautiful, nimble and fast, the interior is flawless but the only thing I worry about is the extreme level of electronics. I hope the days when Jag’s nemesis of befuddling electronic issues are now gone because it would be a shame to see such an amazing car brought down that way. It really is as good as all the international awards it has won.
Funny thing is, at a hair under $60,000, the XF is actually a relatively good deal in this particular market. As I said, the competition is pretty steep but they have created a package of performance, handling and beautifully turned out interior under a unique exterior styling that makes a distinctive silhouette. Not unlike the big cats themselves.
