Last week, newbie writer, Aaron got the once-in-a-lifetime oppurtunity to sit behind the wheel of a concept Jaguar, right here on SA soil and see what the luxury brand has in store for it’s future models. Take it away you lucky bastard!

When talking about the C-X17, Jaguar stated that “even we don’t know what to classify it as”. Well I have the answer for you Jaguar, it’s a cross dresser, and not a very convincing one at that. The C-X17 is supposed to be a cross between a sports car and an off-road vehicle (read: it’s Jaguar’s answer to the Range Rover Evoque), but my impression is that the C-X17 is much more off-road than sports.

The C-X17 isn’t going to be released; not in this form anyway. It is intended to be a design document for Jag’s future models, sporting new features such as Jag’s “Monocoque” aluminium build, which will result in much lighter cars. It also houses one of Jag’s new family of engines that they claim can reach top speeds of over 300 Km/H and emissions lower than 100g of CO2 per kilometre. These features and more are going to be used in Jag’s upcoming models, and while they didn’t announce any of these models, they did say that the first of these new cars will be a C/D segment sedan that will launch in 2015.

The C-X17 is a large car; no matter what Jaguar insists. It’s nearly 5 metres in length and has a wheelbase of 3; that’s pretty big for “sports car”. Although, the Jaguar C-X17 is far more stylish than its boxy off-road peers, and the interior is futuristic even for a concept car. The C-X17 has its own Wi-Fi, and touch screens decorate the centre console to “support passenger interactivity”, so that you can FINALLY have something to do while being chauffeured around!

The C-X17 is definitely a great showing on Jaguar’s part, the technology and design truly are outstanding, but it baffles me as to why they chose to show off these features on a crossover. My call, they would’ve been better appreciated in a luxury sedan. But soon!