Jaguar X-Type
Question: What's a Jaguar if not exclusive? Answer: An Jaguar X-Type. Okay, let's get this straight.
We appreciate the Jaguar X-Type's strong powertrain, grippy chassis and all-season usability. But if we learned anything from our yearlong test of Coventry's entry-level cat (AW, April 15, 2002), it was that we didn't feel as special behind the wheel as we anticipated. Oh, we tried to make our car stand out. We washed. We waxed. We got sideways. No one (except the gazillion other Jaguar X-Type owners) noticed. Much too late (for us, not you), we discovered help was a mere ocean away, in the form of Jochen Arden.
Arden's Jaguar association began as a dealer in 1982. Today, his Krefeld, Germany-based company (arden.de) engineers and produces cosmetic and engine upgrades, as well as everything in between, for the entire Jaguar line. Arden's U.S. affiliate, XKs Unlimited in San Luis Obispo, California, stocks a range of parts for the S-Type, XK, earlier XJs (a product line for the new aluminum XJ arrives shortly) and Jaguar X-Type.
To demonstrate the understated Jaguar X-Type's style potential, XKs own-er Jason Len equipped his person-al 3.0-liter, manual-transmission car with Arden's upper ($384) and low- er ($452) stainless mesh grilles, front spoiler ($754), rear valance ($742) and side skirts ($749). Roadholding improves thanks to 18x8.5-inch Arden/OZ five-spoke, split-rim alloy wheels carrying Pirelli P Zero rubber ($3,867), and Arden/Eibach progressive-rate springs ($495) that reduce ride height by one inch. Len kept the OEM shocks, which XKs recommends for new cars, but Eibach units are available to those for whom OEM is a four-letter word. Arden's four-tip stainless muffler exhaust ($1,668, requires rear valance) and aluminum pedal kit with dead pedal ($430) complete the car.
The Arden conversion, which XKs completes in about a day (expect to pay around $1,300 for paintwork and installation), works wonders for the stock Jaguar X-Type's runt-of-the-litter aura; the car of choice for upwardly mobile 30-somethings no longer looks so out of place in the CEO's parking space. With its poised-to-strike stance, chunky bodywork and gurgling exhaust note, the baby Jag at last possesses enough panache and, yes, exclusivity, to match the rest of the marque's line.
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