More Details on Jaguar's XE

Jaguar is on a product renaissance as of late! The XK and XF have  been hit products and it looks like the recently-introduced XJ flagship is following in those footsteps as well. We've never quite seen a Jaguar lineup like this! Hopefully, it will be enough to bring the brand to profitability. If this all-star lineup of cars can't, nothing can.

Even under Ford's ownership, it is has been long rumored that Jaguar was planning an XE roadster to compete against Porsche's highly successful Boxster. Nothing ever came of it as it was delayed over and over again. Now Jaguar is being managed right and it looks like it finally could make it's way to production.

Ratan Tata, head of Tata Motors (the company that owns Jaguar) is backing the roadster himself. When you have a chairman like Ratan Tata backing the product, it's likely that it will get built.

Car Magazine is the one with the latest info on the XE, saying both a coupe and convertible model will be available unlike originally planned. Supposedly the coupe model is to go after the Cayman - Porsche is clearly the target here.

Sadly, the XE is not slated to be mid-engined like originally thought - that truly would be a Boxster. Instead business sense rules the day, with the XE debuting a new all-aluminum platform that will "eventually underpin the XK, XF and XJ." Interesting, it is true that Jaguar is planning more use of aluminum in it's future products as a differentiator. The XE roadster seems like a curious place to debut a new platform though. Maybe they want to demonstrate it's flexibility?

Don't expect to see the XE very soon though: it appears the date set for 2011 has been scratched, with a debut sometime in 2013. I know these things take time, but can you hurry up a bit Jaguar? We've been waiting for this car for years.