The cat claws back: 2011 Jaguar XJL

Other luxury car makers, listen up: in the heedless pursuit of technological one-upmanship, you sometimes lose sight of the driver.

To put it more bluntly: Slipping behind the steering wheel shouldn't make you feel as if you are climbing into the cockpit of a space shuttle.

The driver should feel his nerves soothed because he has entered a world designed expressly for his comfort and enjoyment. At the same time, his senses should be heightened by the pleasures and challenges that await him on the road ahead.

For a master class on putting the driver first, arrange yourself in the left front seat of the 2011 Jaguar XJL and pay attention. The instrument panel in front of you is covered in fine leather. The instruments themselves are exquisitely designed and esthetically pleasing. The driving position feels completely natural, and the steering wheel is just right -- not too thick or too thin.

(Okay, you still use a strange rotary dial to select the gears, and the touch-screen controls are so clumsy and unintuitive that I am still searching for a way to enter a destination in the navigation system, but these are quibbles).

The exterior design is flawless, from the chain-link front grille to the fastback roof line that flows into powerful rear haunches. The shapes that looked a bit awkward on the shorter XF seem perfectly proportioned here, and the overall effect is one of -- for lack of a less hackneyed term -- timeless elegance.

Under way, the Jag is a joy. The aluminum unibody construction means the XJL is a light car by luxury car standards -- 4131 lbs. compared to a BMW 750Li that weighs in at 4641 lbs.

That absence of mass can be felt when you hit the accelerator. The 385-horsepower 5.0 liter V-8 pushes the Jag ahead effortlessly and quietly.

Driving the XJL is like being attended to by an expert British butler who looks like Catherine Zeta-Jones.

And an economy-minded one at that. The base sticker price for the XJL is $78,650. That compares with $85,900 for the BMW and $83,000 for the new Audi A8. As tested, my black-over-tan review car came in at $85,700.

Jaguar's new owner, India's Tata (TTM), badly needs the new XJ to be a hit. This is the first new model launched under its stewardship, and questions have been raised about the company's ability to manage a luxury brand -- especially one as fragile as Jaguar.

Following an ill-advised attempt to go down market with a rebadged Ford (F) Mondeo, Jag is trying to make a go of it with just two models -- the smaller XJ sedan and the XK two-door -- in addition to the XJ. The company remains grievously overmanned for the amount of cars it builds, and Tata is pondering a plant closing to rationalize capacity.

But after many years of wandering in the design wilderness, Jaguar seems to have regained its styling mojo.

An elegant, dare I say feline, grace has been a Jaguar hallmark almost since the company was founded in the 1920s as the Swallow Sidecar Company. With the new XJL, Jaguar continues that spirit and, hopefully, reintroduces the marque to a new generation of buyers.