Jaguar X Type  

X Type
Mondeo in drag, nothing more to say.

Forduar C Type...
With the Forduar Contour Type (USA), er, Forduar Mondeo Type (England), er, the Jaguar X Type (both places), Ford brought a knife to a gun fight, and an ugly knife at that.
The Ford Contour/Mondeo, which the Jaguar X Type is based on, was an above average handling, high volume small sedan plagued with a too small back seat and reliability problems. It was Ford's first attempt at a "world car"; that is, a car designed to be sold more or less the same in all the markets of the world that Ford serves. They spent a ton of development money on it. It did well in Europe. It did poorly in USA and was soon pulled and replaced with two cars--the Ford Focus (a better attempt at a world car) and reskinned Mazda 6 called the Ford Fusion. The Ford Contour/Mondeo made no headway at all in the Far East. Bottom line the Contour/Mondeo had a ton of development costs that were probably not amortized.
Around the same time the Contour/Mondeo was being less than a smashing success as a world car, Ford was was cash rich from cost cutting and selling obsolete, reskinned pickup trucks as high margin SUVs and so rather than plow the money back into making better products than the Contour/Mondeo, they started buying low volume brands like Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover--what they clustered and called their Premier Auto Group. The idea was to share drive train systems across these brands, give them some restyles, charge high prices, make big per unit margins, recover the investment quick, deny the brands to other major car companies and suddenly be as diversified in the high end of the market place as in the mid and low ends.
Alas, Ford quickly went from being cash rich to being cash strapped as the European economy, its recent big breadwinner, stagnated and it keep losing market share in America. So: Ford management decided to cut corners on what they were willing to do for these new brands. At Jaguar, that meant the big XJ got a fabulous reengineering but a very conservative restyling to avoid losing any existing customers. It proved too conservative and so all the great engineering went to waste in a market place that had great looking contemporary designs wrapping equally good engineering to choose from. In the case of the Jaguar X Type, Ford said reskin a Mondeo/Contour, make it cute, and hope it sells to women and old persons who didn't need alot of performance or car. As ususal, both age cohorts turned out to be less gullible than Ford management gambled. Ford lost. The cars didn't sell very well, despite favorable pricing. And of course after the first year's data hit Consumer Reports, it was apparent that not only was it inferior, it was also unreliable. This is somewhat like comedian Rodney Dangerfield being told he's dumb by his shrink, asking for a second opinon, and being told he's ugly too. (rim shot) Now for some more analysis...

Forduar C Type...Pt. 2
Ford bought Jaguar, because it sought instant name recognition and cache in the luxury market. What it got was a moribund car company that had once made distinctive large saloons (XJ sedans), and a great line of sports cars starting with the XK120s of the 50s and the XKEs of the 60s. Note that Jaguar never made a great entry level luxury sports sedan comparable to the BMW 3 series, or to the old 2002/1600 series before it. So: Jaguar's name recognition and history had no relevance to the BMW 3 series market whatever. Ford marketers apparently overlooked this fact and naively jumped into this market with a Ford Mondeo/Contour reskinned with a vaguely XJ sedan look. The car is frumpy in its massing, inelegant in its lines, goofy in its details, underpowered and nowhere near as dynamically sound as a BMW 3 series. The front of the car looks like a Thomas the Tank engine face with constipation. The slightly too small in every direction interior looks antiquated and not retro chic, and the trunk is teeny.
When a car maker spends stockholder's and lender's monies to design a car, they ought at least to ask: who would want this car? I suspect Ford's marketers asked the question and came up with this answer: suckers for the Jaguar mystique. They tailor made a car for them. And they attracted them. The trouble is: a) suckers and their monies are soon parted; b) suckers stripped of money can't come back and trade in; c) suckers read like everyone else and when the cars been out awhile and reviews say it stinks, suckers move on to the next sucker play and you lose your sucker market; d) persons with incomes high enough to buy BMWs, or even the lesser price of the Jag, tend to want a great looking, great performing, reliable car, which the Forduar C Type is not.
The Forduar C Type nee Jaguar X Type is a remaking of a mistake Cadillac made two decades ago when it tried to pawn off a Chevy Cavalier as a Cadillac Cimmaron to compete with BMWs, and which it then made again six years ago when it tried to pawn off a mid range Opel as a Cadillac to compete with BMWs.
To reiterate, never bring a knife, especially a half-assed one, to a gun fight.

dcwilson doesn't shoot blanks
this is a personal story; 4years ago appr. same date my dad bought an xtype, myself a bmw3. fortunately my dad also got another more reliable car (toyota)! his x has now 50.000km, my bmw 180.000 (yep i drive a lot). since day one he had a lot of technical troubles (water in the trunk, lights not functioning, ...) 2years ago some serious troubles occurred; the wheels and tyres started to overheat and making nasty noises. the garage could never tell what the problem was (problem stays unsolved! at this day). My bmw; problems? uh? none!!
talking about style; thats personal; my dad doesn't want my bmw (everybody has got one!-nr7 of mostsold car in belgium) and i don't like his jag; to comfy and soft. car owners are often honest regarding technical problems (because the car is a reflection of mans personality). but it is easy to see that the secondhand market is overwhelmed with x-types; yes this means something. problem with ford, GM and volkswagen is their will to want to build a worldcar forgetting that they lose every bit of personality and is buying a car not emotiondriven?