Jaguar X-Type (2001)
Certainly, Jaguar needed an entry-level luxury car to compete against the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. Yes, the company owned by Ford had access to a very successful world car platform, the Mondeo, which Americans knew as the Ford Contour. However, Jaguar pushed the limits of platform technology in an attempt to transform the front-wheel drive compact car into an all-wheel drive sports sedan. The result was the English version of the Cadillac Cimarron, an insult to a once-proud brand and a financial disaster for the company. It hardly matters that the X-Type wasn’t such a bad car. Young wealthy shoppers felt they were being addressed somehow.
Jaguar X-Type (2001)
BMW 7er (2002)
The Munich-based company’s flagship sedan was nothing short of everything the company knew about car making, and that was quite a lot. Perfectly engineered, amazingly fast, and utterly tech-savvy, the big, lovable 7 Series had only two flaws: the first was iDrive, a rotary knob/joystick controller on the center console that allowed the driver to adjust dozens of vehicle settings, from climate, navigation, and audio features to things like the sound of the doorbell. The reason for iDrive and similar systems is that the designers are running out of space for switches and instruments.
BMW 7er (2002)