We were quite surprised when Jaguar dropped a ‘scoop’ shot of a disguised Jag XF Sportbrake on to its Twitter feed this week. Particularly when it had Father Christmas in piling up the boot with presents.
It goes to show what a strange media landscape this is nowadays, one where car manufacturers – like any big business – try and control the message, seed out teasers on social media and engage directly with consumers bypassing traditional media channels such as print and broadcast.
There are certainly myriad more options to promote a new car nowadays than there were 30, 20 or even 10 years ago.
It’s rare for a business to launch a new product without having its own Facebook page, Twitter feed and probably a fancy bash in London with a host of C-list slebs. Which is fine – we just hope they don’t blow the marketing budget on tosh which could be spent on making the car look, drive, ride and steer better.
So does this Jaguar XF Sportbrake photo tell us much?
Apart from the fact that Santa appears to have a good taste in cars, it gives us a quick glimpse inside the new XF Sportbrake, Jaguar’s new XF estate which is due to be seen in 2012.
We can’t see much of the boot, but he’s obviously piling up a few boxes and we’re impressed by the ease of access to the boot; there’s no lip whatsoever visible in this shot.
Might the bootlid feature a pop-up glass screen like on the 5-series Touring? We suspect it might, and can see some impressively heavy duty dampers lifting the boot.
But judging by the fast-raked roofline, the XF Sportbrake won’t win class honours for overall boot volume. Class swot for load lugging remains the voluminous Mercedes E-class wagon, with its 695 litres.
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