A room-service waiter once wheeled a trolley laden with champagne into a hotel room occupied by George Best, in his pomp and his dressing gown. Arranged on the bed was a Miss World contestant and thousands of pounds of casino winnings. “Mr Best,” the waiter famously asked, “where did it all go wrong?”

The waiter probably didn’t look out of the window, but if he had, he’d probably have seen one of George’s Jaguars parked below: it would only have made this poster boy for the raffish, slightly dangerous image Jag once had seem all the more perfect. Like George, Jaguar has seen extremes of fortune, but right now it’s having a hotel-room moment. Like George, it’s flush with cash, Jaguar-Land Rover having just declared a billion-pound – billion-pound – post-tax profit on sales of ten times that. Like George, it is awash with attractive models; its XF and striking new XJ saloons, the XK coupe, the C-X75 eco-supercar and the smaller XE coupe-convertible that the spy photographers have started snapping (you think these things happen unplanned?)

Yet just two years ago Jaguar had the begging bowl out. Sales ravaged by the recession, it faced having to close one of its three factories and still needing to touch Lord Mandelson for a loan and guarantees worth around £600m just to keep operating. A few famous automotive names didn’t make it through the GFC, and for a while Jaguar looked like it might be one of them.

So, Jaguar, where did it all go right?

Three things saved Jag: good cars, Ian Callum, and the Indians. It had been making good cars for a while; the 2002 revision of the S-Type was pretty sensational to drive, and the XJ of 2003 was a revelation with its lightweight aluminium construction that made heroes of its new diesels and small, economical petrols.

But God, they were awful to look at, Jaguar having found a design language that worked in the sixties and having mutated it ever since. That XJ was particularly bad, the lines of William Lyons’ elegant ’68 saloon contorted and stretched around the volumes and hard points and crash requirements of a modern car.

Ian Callum hadn’t been in his design director job long when that XJ was launched and had little to do with it; he virtually held his nose as he first showed it to me in his studio at Gaydon. Richard Parry-Jones, global product supreme for Ford, which owned Jaguar then and an insane driver, was more enthusiastic as we drove a prototype at furious speed through torrential rain on the empty mountain roads around his Welsh home. It was terrific to drive: pity so few people found out.

Car designers are like football managers, generally moved on too soon when their plans need time to work through. Callum is an exception. He remembers when Jaguars were edgy and ground-breaking rather than retro and derivative, and he’s been left in place long enough to have been responsible for his employers entire line-up: a very rare achievement.

And oh, must Jaguar be glad. After years in the doldrums Jaguar’s sales had started brightly in 2008, thanks entirely to the XF, which now looked as good as the old S-Type drove. Without the XF and the new XJ Callum had already penned, Tata might not have bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford in early 2008 for £1.4bn.

Despite the XF, Jaguar’s 2009 sales slumped 33 per cent. But without them, it might have closed altogether, particularly if the Tata buy-out hadn’t gone through and Ford, desperate to cut its European losses and avoid bankruptcy itself, had been left with two companies that were haemorrhaging money and just a few months later would have been impossible to offload.

Ian Callum’s reimagining of Jaguar isn’t solely responsible for its survival. British car enthusiasts often bemoan the lack of a domestically-owned major carmaker, but globalization makes such concepts less relevant, and as owners go, they don’t get much better than Ratan Tata. He’s a car boss in the Piech or Agnelli mould; eccentric, visionary, maybe a little mad. He has a strong social conscience: he says his goal in business is to lay his head on his pillow each night knowing he has harmed no-one, and it was his desire to cut road deaths in India that inspired him to create the Nano, a ‘proper’ car for just £1400.

When the conditions Mandelson attempted to impose on a bail-out package for Jaguar-Land Rover proved too onerous, Tata manned-up and doubled-down, pumping an estimated billion quid into his British acquisition, despite the fact that the Indian mothership was struggling too. And he’s had the courage to leave Jaguar to it: insiders report an almost total lack of interference from the new bosses despite what they’ve risked.

So you couldn’t blame Tata for repatriating the vast profits Jaguar is making as its market has come back to find a sexy, edgy range of cars waiting for it. Except he’s not. Far from closing a factory, JLR is now looking to open an engine plant. It’s hiring 1000 engineers and plans to spend an extra half-billion each year on new models. It’s not difficult; good cars that look good will sell, and Tata is prepared to fund them and let Jaguar get on with making them. And the good news on the financial pages is as important as a five-star road test result in Autocar.

The former Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking said that successful people like to buy cars from a successful company. It has the models and the cash, but with Tata in charge it’s unlikely to chuck it all away like Georgie did.

XK 120
The beginning of the Jaguar Golden age. Took the world by storm when launched in 1948 and initiated the basis of the perennial XK engine. Made a legend (and a Knight) out of Jag chief and design boss William Lyons – and demonstrated that Britain really had won the war.

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XK 120 ‘C’ Type
Designated for ‘competition’ the race version of the XK120 had a tuned engine and an aerodynamic shell designed by Malcolm Sayers. Won Le Mans in 1951 at its first attempt and now rare as the proverbial hen’s teeth.

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XKSS
The road going version of the D type is, in our opinion certainly the most magnificent British car ever made: and probably one of the greatest road cars ever. Outrageous body swathes and cuts and carnal proportions for us out-redheads Ferrari’s 250 TR.

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Mk 2
Brilliant middle-period creation much loved by blaggers as well as the coppers who’d try to chase them. In white, with red leather interior and wires it’s impossibly English and brutally elegant – but ultimately it’s the pacey mid size saloon format it pioneered forJaguar that is its truly lasting legacy.

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XJ12 C
This is the only Leyland Era Jag to make our list…and we’d prefer it with the 5.3 Engine and the Walkinshaw-Broadspeed racing treatment as pictured. It’s incredible that this monster still looks so good. But it does.

images courtesy Mark Lacey

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XFR
After the mediocre S and X Type, design visionary Ian Callum finally got his chops into the brand and created a winning format. The R version was and is a true challenger to the M5 Supersaloon, with a perfect blend of mentalism and practicability.

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XJ
The XJ took the refinement and the performance of the XF and clothed it a stretched and sculpted format. The result is a world beating wafter that holds its own in most areas against the Teutonic equivalent – and beats them hands down in terms of pure beauty.

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XKR-S
We haven’t driven it yet, but this extreme version of the XKR is a stone cold certainty for future classic. It’s set to be the quickest proper series production Jag ever (no, the XJ220 didn’t count). We’re wondering, though, why did they make the launch cars in French racing blue? What’s wrong with British Racing Green?

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My first Jaguar experience took place when I was six years old; for some reason my parents abandoned their penchant for 1970’s Renaults (4, 12 and 16 I seem to recall, but not in numerical order) in favour of something meatier; a Mark 2. After all that Gaelic plastic and leatherette the walnut and cowhide was a revelation. Sadly in the heat wave of 1977 the 2483cc engine gasped it’s last on the A303 outside Sparkford, home of the Haynes Publishing empire. Not even the proximity so many manuals could convince my parents to embark on the mighty repair.

My latest Jaguar Experience is altogether more thrilling. August 2010 finds me rocketing round Silverstone’s tight Stowe circuit in a 500 BHP XKR coupe; I approach a chicane white-faced with adrenalin. My passenger and professional driver/guide barks orders “Hard on the brakes. Harder! Harder!” Despite his instructions I overcook it…thankfully some clever actuators kick in and traction control saves me from more spectacular embarrassment.

I’m attending a hybrid press/ revered-Jag-owners event in which punters and journos get to tarnish spanking new motors with their hot and sticky hands. It’s based in the new Stowe Complex, a custom built facility designed for such corporate shindigs,

Parked outside are over forty box-fresh vehicles; they encompass the entire 2010 range. The goal of these Ian Callum designed cars is to redefine the brand in quest for young consumers. As a result there’s much muscular styling in the body (which both honours Jaguar’s pedigree and is easy on the eye), while inside the gentleman’s club interior of old has been banished in favour of trick design features, club-like interior mood lighting and amazing sound systems.

That morning I drove a long wheel base XJ (limo plush peppered with clever details) and the 3.0 XF Diesel, (the most glamorous of family cars fitted with Jaguar’s sequential-shift paddle changers)…but the one I really had my eye on was the top cat, the leader of the gang, the £75,000 5-litre V8 XKR.

A light sprinkle of rain had seen the more experienced drivers begin murmuring words like “greasy”, but that didn’t stop me donning a helmet and stepping into a gloss red Coupe. The noise was fantastic and although the other cars had been quick enough, this was a whole new league. 0-60mph in 4.6 seconds for starters. The car felt light and nimble and even on the short 1.2 mile circuit it was easy to power past other motors on the track.
As I pass the pits for the umpteenth time my driver/guide calls, “Last lap”. I blip the paddle shifters down a gear and stand on the throttle. Now the chicane is approaching; the Driver Guide sits silent as I do my level best not to embarrass myself again. “Better” he mutters as we exit. I can’t really justify how satisfied I felt.

Funnily enough my day had begun in a Renault. I arrived at Silverstone in the family Megane, if that old adage that we turn into our parents is true, surely that means next-stop big fast Jag?

*clowder: the collective noun for cats. No, we didn’t know either. Thank you Wikipedia.

In the year that Jaguar celebrates its 75th anniversary, we thought it would be fitting to spend some time with some of the new Jags that have been making such an impact.

Designer Ian Callum certainly knows how to pen a beautiful creation. When we travelled up to the lakes earlier this year in his stunning XFR, we fell in a rich, bounteous sort of lust. With the five litre, V8 supercharged motor and brilliantly adaptive traction control, the XFR was like a football hooligan dressed as a Guards Officer. And that is a good thing.

At the moment, we’re three days in with some beautiful time with the New XJ. Three hundred and fifty miles and only half a tank of diesel in, we have to say it is every bit as impressive as its shorter, slightly more aggressive cousin. The engine pulls beautifully right through the range, and the car handles like a much smaller specimen, especially with ‘dynamic’ mode engaged. It eats up motorway miles in the most gracious and comfortable manner imaginable — and the cabin and ICE is second to none in quality. Having recently done the same thing in an E Class Benz, there’s no comparison. The XJ feels like a car you really want to be with — while the Merc seems like a marriage of practical convenience.

This Jag is so good that our road companion and partner-in-life said during our elegant waft from London to Bath that ‘she didn’t want the journey to end’.

Stay tuned for a fully fleshed out feature on Jag’s new dawn online and in the forthcoming print ‘zine..

PS: The XJ is a pretty car, but not quite as luscious as our favourite English car: the XJ 13…

Jaguar have just announced that an all-new Jaguar XJ will make its public debut this July. And the rotten teases in the Gaydon press office have released just this one bird’s eye view of the new saloon.

Speaking at Auto Shanghai 2009, Jaguar Cars Managing Director, Mike O’Driscoll confirmed that the all-new XJ will go on sale at the end of 2009 – but will officially be revealed on July 9th in London.

It will be the first car to feature the next-generation of Jaguar’s aerospace-inspired aluminium body architecture.

All of Jaguar’s new ultra-efficient Gen III petrol and diesel engines will be available in the new XJ, including the already acclaimed V6 diesel and 510 bhp supercharged V8. There will be a choice of standard or long wheelbase models – as well as a panoramic glass roof highlighted in the first picture.

With the success of the excellent XF, It’s difficult to see what space the XJ is going to occupy in the Jag Pantheon. We’ll just have to wait and see how the final release looks, feels and drives.

But can there really be room for two completely different mid size luxury saloons from Jaguar?

In our humble opinion, the loveliest Jag ever to grace our roads is the incomparable XK 120, that was produced way back in 1948.

Now that’s what we call a panoramic roof.