Jaguar design boss:: reports of wagon death greatly exaggerated

Contrary to a report in industry journal Automotive News - which suggested that the ongoing boom in SUV sales had moved Jaguar to rule out new wagons - Callum said in a tweet that he had only confirmed there wouldn’t be an XE-based wagon.

Sportbrake is the name Jaguar used for its wagon bodystyle when the original XF Sportbrake was released in Europe back in 2012.

The Sportbrake variant of the XF was set to hit Australian shores on a special order basis in 2013, however Jaguar backflipped on its decision a year later.

With the XE wagon ruled out, Callum’s comments point to a future wagon variant of one of its larger sedans, the XF and XJ (although the latter is about as likely as an S-Class or 7 Series wagon), with the most likely candidate to be the latest XF.

At the 2015 New York motor show, Callum told CarAdvice that an XE and XF wagon had been investigated, however he couldn’t comment further.

During the interview last year Callum also voiced that he would prefer to do coupe variants of Jaguar models, in line with the company’s sports car-oriented heritage.

“My view, is that I would prefer to do coupes of everything,” he said.

Jaguar PR global director Richard Agnew also spoke in New York, stating his thoughts on the model line expansion plans.

He said that the brand’s main focus was to launch three all-new cars off a flexible platform to bolster its core range.

“We’ve got an architecture, and the priority around it is around our lines of small, medium and large sedans and the SUV, F-Pace,” he said.

“So we’ve got three all-new cars, off a flexible architecture, and that’s where we started out to get the range, the core range, in a good place.”

However, Agnew alluded to expanding the core model family - possibly derivatives of those models - being launched in the near future.

“Of course in the future there’s lots of holes that could be filled,” he said.

“But our priority over the next 12 to 18 months is to build that family.”

While buyers in markets such as Australia and the US have ditched the humble station wagon in favour of higher-riding SUVs, places like Europe still flock to the ‘estate’ as the go-to family vehicle.

Jaguar’s first SUV, the F-Pace, will launch in Australia in July, and is expected to become the company’s top-seller.

With no confirmation yet of a new Jaguar wagon, only time will tell if Jaguar will add a Sportbrake to its lineup.

MORE: Jaguar Sportbrake and Coupe versions on the cards
MORE: Jaguar F-Pace to be company’s top-seller
MORE: Jaguar XF news and reviews
MORE: Jaguar F-Pace news and reviews
MORE: Jaguar news, reviews, pricing and specs