Jaguar XF Voted “Car of the Decade” by Auto Express Readers (but how?)

Well, there is no doubt that the Jaguar XF is a very nice car and indeed, we’ve always enjoyed the ones we’ve used here at BVL headquarters, however over 300,000 readers of Auto Express Car Magazine have just voted for the Jaguar XF as their “Car of the Decade” and whilst on the face of it, that’s fine, of course it is, it does seem a little odd that as only 37,000 of them have been sold in the UK since its launch in 2008, so logically, 263,000 readers who voted for the car have almost certainly never owned one and most likely, have never even driven one! 

So it’s that likeability factor is it?  It’s like voting for Russell Grant in Strictly, because you like him, or ditching Frankie out of X Factor because you don’t like him.  Well in truth, its worse than that, because at least you could judge Russell or Frankie’s performance first hand, as you can see what they do, but surely, awarding a car the accolade of “Car of the Decade” and the best car to own, should be based on something a little more tangible than just kind of liking it?  Surely, you’ve got to have owned it, or at least, driven it frequently before you can say how good or bad it is.

OK, it’s just an opinion, but Jaguar are spinning this and have even written to us with a reprint of the Auto Express front cover and Auto Express are writing headlines about this result, but for me, it makes you realise just how pointless these kinds of awards are.  It’s like giving Kristin Davis the award as the best lady to be married to, without having ever been married to her, or having even met her, because she looks good and everyone says nice things about her.  It’s all silly and devalues the whole concept of consumer opinion, as consumers now it appears don’t even have to have consumed the product before they become experts on it. 

So, where are we?  The Jaguar XF is undoubtedly a very nice car but it’s priced between £30,000 and £60,000, so it should be nice, it should be very nice and if it were anything less than that, it would have failed completely.  In my experience, most £30k to £60k cars are nice, but to honestly be considered to be the car of the decade there should be lots of things taken into consideration (not the least, the price).  Still well done Jaguar. 

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