New Passat, Jaguar Estate

Never has a car been more gender-bending.

Audi A6 Allroad success

And no doubt VW have one eye on the success of the Audi A6 Allroad. And also more indirectly on the success of the BMW X6, which demonstrates consumer appetite for unusual off-road vehicles.

So what sort of features does the new Passat Alltrack bring to market?

The car offers a stainless steel-look underbody skid plates front and rear, plus black plastic cladding around the wheelarches and sills - stretching the visual stance - while matt chrome adorns the roof rails, window surrounds and door mirrors.

New Jaguar estate shocker!

Another car with an eye on the succes of the A6 is Jaguar whose latest development is an estate version of the successful XF. This will be only the second ever estate vehicle.

And indeed it does somehow seem rather difficult to conceive of a Jaguar estate. This is irrational of course. Perhaps there’s something in the Jaguar brand which is at odds with the carriage of luggage, or children.

Jaguar diesel variant

The Jaguar XF however addresses its task by way of the sort of inovative sporting design we have some to expect from the smaller Jaguars, as they muscle into market territory traditonally occupied by manufacturers such as BMW and Audi.

And further evidence of Jaguar’s ambitions in this sector comes from its recent introduction of the 2.2 litre diesel variant of the XJ, which pushes the car out into the company car sector.

But even in its development guise the XJ is extremely good looking.The Sportbrakes will appear late in 2012 and will rival the BMW 5-series Touring, Audi A6 Avant and Mercedes E-class estate.