11 June 2001: Jaguar Ireland has set itself a target of selling 650 units a year, to be achieved in a few years, which will represent a quantum leap over the 121 units sold as recently as 1998.

Key to that strategy is the arrival of the X-Type, Jaguar’s new ‘small’ car, which is aimed squarely at BMW’s 3-Series, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi’s recently upmarketed A4.

The price of the X-Type in Ireland begins at £36,100 and ranges through Executive or Sport streams to a top cost of £43,250. Two V6 engines are available, 2.5- or 3-litre, the former based on the Ford Duratec V6 as used in the Mondeo, but with a head that is ‘completely Jaguar’, according to the company. Five-speed manual or automatic gearboxes are used

A 42-item options list ranges from £50 for a warning triangle or first-aid kit to £3,330 for a satellite navigation system (which, of course, can’t yet be used in Ireland).

In a break from tradition, the X-Type has AWD as standard, giving it a marketing and perhaps a performance edge against the BMW and M-B competition. Although the company intimates that this was a carefully thought out strategy, it is generally believed that producing a rear-wheel-drive car from scratch was going to require too much re-engineering of the platform.

Suggestions that the X-Type is on a Mondeo platform were brushed off by a company spokesman who said there was ‘only a 20% commonality’ of components between the two cars.

Globally, Jaguar aims to double its current 100,000 unit annual sales, which will still leave it well behind the 800,000-plus units of BMW and the 1.1 million cars sold by Mercedes-Benz in 2000.

At least 50% of total sales are forecast for the X-Type, against over 250,000 annually for the Audi A4 and slightly more for the C-Class, while BMW’s 3-Series will remain segment leader with almost 500,000 a year.

The VRT-loaded higher price of the X-Type in Ireland may mean it will have an older buyer in Ireland than is being targeted elsewhere, Jaguar Ireland MD Gerard O’Farrell (pictured here on the right with Jaguar Ireland CE Declan McCourt) said at Friday’s Irish launch of the car, though he noted that there were quite a few relatively young people who had expressed definite interest by registering on the company’s website in advance of the X-Type’s arrival.

The demographics of the segment indicate an average early- to mid-40s owner in the US, the UK and Japan. In Germany the buyer of equivalent cars tends to be older, at around 57 on average.

The X-Type’s marketing will also be aimed at women, both those in the professions and as a second car where there is already a larger Jaguar in the home.

The projections shown at the launch indicate that the new car will eat into S-Type sales in Ireland during 2001. Just 120 X-Types have been allocated for the Irish market for the remainder of this year, and it is not even clear if all of these will be available before the end of September, traditionally the cut-off point for registration of cars in the luxury sector.

Next year, some 250 out of 400 Jaguars expected to be sold here will be X-Class, according to Declan McCourt, chief executive of Jaguar Ireland. TW