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" Jaguar is one of the most enigmatic car companies on the planet. By that I mean nobody seems to know exactly what Jaguar means here in the twenty-first century. Is Jaguar a curvaceous BMW alternative (the XK coupe and convertible), a conservative British counterpoint to Audi (the XJ sedan), or a re-badged European Ford (the ill-fated X-Type)? It&amp;#039;s all of those things, hence the confusion.  The challenge faced by Jaguar&amp;#039;s new owner, Tata, is that most of Jag&amp;#039;s recent models have been tied so tightly to the car&amp;#039;s heritage. Despite its sophisticated aluminum chassis, the current XJ looks like the previous XJ, which looked a lot like the one before that. The XK is aging quite well but is nonetheless a riff on an old tune. In terms of setting a new direction, then, the burden lies on the all-new XF sedan. If the new XF is not quite U2&amp;#039;s Achtung Baby, it&amp;#039;s at least Journey with Arnel Pineda -- comfortingly familiar, yet novel enough to get the casual fan interested again. Whatever you think of the XF&amp;#039;s looks (I see shades of Maserati Quattroporte in the front-side profile, a bit of BMW X6 in the roofline), it doesn&amp;#039;t ape the Jags of yore the way its predecessor, the S-Type, did. The sheet metal of the fenders looks as if it were pulled down taut over the wheels, and the long slope of the rear glass terminates in a stubby little trunk lid that suggests the lines of a coupe more than a sedan. I&amp;#039;m a bit bummed that Jag didn&amp;#039;t damn the torpedoes and go for the more rakish lines of the C-XF concept car, but that decision probably stems from Jaguar&amp;#039;s limited resources -- Mercedes and BMW can dabble with wild styling and accept the risk on cars like the CLS and X6, but Jaguar can&amp;#039;t afford to have its entry-level sedan thought of as a niche vehicle. It needs a solid mainstream success, and so the XF&amp;#039;s more whimsical elements are confined to the interior. Start the car and the tumescent shift knob rises from the center console. (Prepare for the inevitable Austin Powers/Shaguar/&amp;quot;Or are you just happy to see me?&amp;quot; jokes.) The dashboard vents spin around to reveal themselves in a motorized welcome dance. The glove-box release and overhead lights are actuated via proximity sensors. Isn&amp;#039;t this all sort of gimmicky? Absolutely. But if Jag wants Lexus or BMW shoppers to pay attention, it helps to inject a measure of whimsy and fun.  The XF drives as well as anything in its class, exhibiting Jag&amp;#039;s silky ride-handling balance and a respectable level of hustle. Its V-8&amp;#039;s, one naturally aspirated and one supercharged, are both sweet-singing devices, but the base motor&amp;#039;s 300 hp is further evidence of Jag&amp;#039;s difficult decisions on where to spend money. When the Camaro&amp;#039;s base V-6 has the same power as your V-8, it&amp;#039;s time for a new motor, and one is apparently forthcoming in the form of a new 5-liter V-8. I&amp;#039;d ask Jag all about it, but the thing is, they won&amp;#039;t tell me much. Or anything.  RELATED STORIES:  What the $2,500 Tata Nano Mini-car Means to the Future of India Ratan Tata Makes Esquire&amp;#039;s 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century PLUS: Esquire&amp;#039;s Online Auto Show 2008   Ever since Ford sold Jaguar to the Indian conglomerate Tata in March for $2.3 billion (the same Tata that owns the three cups of Eight O&amp;#039;Clock coffee I drank this morning, along with ninety-seven other companies that make everything from steel to utilities to the itty-bitty $2,500 Nano car going on sale in India in early 2009), Jaguar and Tata have clammed up tight. I sought to ask someone at Tata a pretty straightforward question about what they think of the XF -- a car Tata inherited, since it was rolled out at the end of the Ford regime -- and how it might fit into Jag&amp;#039;s future direction. From two different angles, I was stiff-armed on this question by Jag PR people, both of whom claimed that Jag is essentially autonomous, and thus there&amp;#039;s no reason to ask Tata about its future. Jag gonna do what Jag gonna do. Next question. I don&amp;#039;t know about you, but if I chip in on a pizza, I want some say on the toppings, and if I spend $2.3 billion on Jaguar and Land Rover, I probably have an opinion on what sort of cars they decide to build. So I skipped a few steps up the ladder from Tata Motors to the overall Tata Group. The Indian mother ship responded with a couple of oblique, eye-glazing quotes from the chairman, Ratan Tata. One, culled directly from the company&amp;#039;s annual report, included the line, &amp;quot;There is a need to introduce a greater number of attractive products for both brands.&amp;quot; Okay, but how? Better fuel economy? A new styling language, along the lines of what Cadillac&amp;#039;s done with its lineup? Tie-dyed seat covers? Because if you&amp;#039;ve seen the Tata trucks all over the place in India, you know they usually look as if they were painted by Wavy Gravy during the biggest acid trip of his life. I approached a friend who grew up among the few fraternal Indian power elite and surely knows a few players at Tata, one of whom might be willing to proffer an opinion on Jag. &amp;quot;Cannot help you,&amp;quot; he wrote. &amp;quot;Tata is a very tight company.&amp;quot; Shortly thereafter, Tata announced that Jaguar and Land Rover would no longer be reporting monthly sales figures. Tight company indeed. So the XF might be selling quite well. Or not.  Tata&amp;#039;s attitude of obfuscation is certainly frustrating when you&amp;#039;re trying to glean a ray of insight into Jaguar&amp;#039;s trajectory. But in the grander picture, the Indians&amp;#039; standoffishness is refreshing, because there are very few real surprises in the automotive world anymore. Pressured to make a splash, car companies announce their plans years in advance. (The Chevy Volt already seems like an old friend even though it&amp;#039;s not slated for production until 2010.) Camouflaged prototypes are relentlessly pursued by spy photographers. The introductions at major car shows these days are a parade of foregone conclusions, victims of the constant information onslaught. I can tell you that Porsche sold six manual-transmission Cayenne V-6&amp;#039;s in the U. S. in August. They sent out an e-mail.  With Tata at the helm, Jaguar might become a company that can come out of left field and deliver an actual surprise once in a while. Will the XF get a new 500 hp V-8? Will the next XK be a hybrid? The man named Ratan doesn&amp;#039;t have to tell us, and that&amp;#039;s actually kind of great.  But since nobody at Tata is talking, allow me to step in with a few modest suggestions: Jaguar should build a sexy $50,000 sports car to introduce younger buyers to the brand and recapture some of that sixties mojo. It should reinvent the XJ as a radically styled four-seat sedan, \u00E0 la the Mercedes CLS, because nobody&amp;#039;s riding bitch in an $80,000 Jaguar anyway. The XF should get faster. An SUV? I wouldn&amp;#039;t rule it out, if I could figure out a way to cast such a thing in an environmentally sensible light, perhaps with a monster diesel under the hood. And this, Mr. Tata, a simple mission statement, if you will: A Jaguar should either make you want to have sex or make someone want to have sex with you. Step to it, chaps. RELATED STORIES:  What the $2,500 Tata Nano Mini-car Means to the Future of India Ratan Tata Makes Esquire&amp;#039;s 75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century PLUS: Esquire&amp;#039;s Online Auto Show 2008   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/cars/a5281/future-of-tata-motors-and-jaguar-1208/>