The newest addition of Jaguar World has a nice article comparing the X308 to the X350.

 

Hey thanks for info, going to order mine

 

When the X350 came to the USA we lived in Kansas City, USA.

I was invited by the local Jaguar to come and see the X350 on one of these car soirees evenings. Sip wine, eat a bit of cheese and some nobles, talk about cars.

So I rock up to the dealership in my XJR (X308). In order to park you had to drive in front of the show room. As I pass a guy jumps in front of me, asks me to park right smack next to the brand spanking new X350. Which I did. Turns out the guy is just a customer like me. Even so, everybody piles around the X308 and X350 and the consensus is the X308 is the prettier by a mile.

After 10 minutes or so, the Sales manager asks me, very politely, to move my car to the customer parking lot. like F-ing now!

Good fun. The X350 is most likely a far better car then the X308. But put them together and it looks a bit like a pregnant whale. Don’t get me wrong, I will get a X350 in due course. But on the visuals alone, the X308 wins hands down from every angle!

Jeroen

 

Digital Form : https://pdf-magazine-download.com/53...pril-2017.html

 

Great link, thanks!

 

X350 was designed for the USA market (always the largest) ... they wanted the 90% fit and more space in the trunk. It was a mistake to keep the retro look.

The x308 was the last -- we make .. you take model.

 

Very short but very insightful post.

I think while the X358 looks quite a bit better than the earlier X350, I do think that the retro look wasn't refined enough on the 04 MY to not just look like a "bigified" X308. Usually during car model facelifts they run the risk of complicating or mucking up lines and add a little too much autozone chrome. I think the X358 really benefitted from the facelift and I think it a beautiful car. I still like the X350 and it's an excellent car, but this is a stylistic opinion I have. I might very well own one, I like aluminum daily drivers since I live in the North US.

While it doesn't look traditional, the X351 is a beautiful car. There's really only so long you can ride the retro train. Considering that Jaguar when they went retro for the X300 they really hadn't gone too modern on the XJ40 stylistically that it was a really retro design. 1987 Series III classic looks, XJ40 modern then 1995 X300 really meant they went "modern" for about 8 years. I will say that the X100 XK8 was definitely more different from the XJS than the X300 was from the XJ40. The XJ line "stagnated" for a long time; I like the looks and the car, but that is an opinion I've heard.

I think the X351 is an excellent successor to the traditionally styled XJs from the Series 1 to X358 style language. It really does have all that is the cliched Grace Space Pace mantra. Get an XJL with the 5.0 SC V8 and you have a car with massive power, room and style oozing all over.

 

I've said it before, the X350 to me looks like an X308 that let itself go.

Before I bought my 03 XJR I did test drive an 04 VDP and the gas pedal tip in response was horrible. I could barely rest my foot on the pedal and keep the car under 50 MPH. The X308 is as it should be, a nice linear pedal. No, I don't want 50% of the engine power in the first 10% of travel, thank you very much. Figured it was was more Ford influence.

I also predicted when the 04s rolled out that somebody would come up with an air-spring delete kit and sure enough it has happened.

-Mike

 

Very few cars are not better mechanically vs the ones they replace .. unless you are GM.

My 1995 X300 VDP was stunning. That's the only word for it -- Flamenco with special order light cream interior ... let's not talk about what I paid. The 95 VDP was a one off SWB car. It was as beautiful a car as my mother's 1992 turquoise / cream XJ. I never felt the X300 was anything but a progression of the brand (never liked the XJ40)

IMO the X308's bumper changes and interior changes were a step backwards vs the X300. The X300 was what the XJ40 should have been ... cars were changing and the X308 was an old design by 2003.

BMW has done as good a job of keeping the design DNA in all the models as anybody ... look at a 2002tii and any new one and you know they are related. MB .. you need to look at the hood .. same with Jaguar

 

When you park an X350 next to an X300/X308, the X350 loses.

When you park an X300/8 next to a Series I, II or III, the X300/8's lose.

What I think really matters is when you park any Jag saloon near a contemporaneous car from any competitor, the Jag usually wins, and that includes XJ40s (which have aged quite well, especially the 4-headlamp versions, IMHO).

Cheers,

Don

 

The final line says that when it comes to owning and driving one, the X350 wins hands down. I can only agree with half of that statement.

 

I love the X308, I've loved it ever since I first laid eyes on it. The X300, though similar in looks to the 308, never got me going. I hate the XJ40 with a passion and the older Series Jaguars, though pretty are not in my eyes as beautiful as the X308. Personally I feel the X308 is the Swan song of the Lyons Line XJ's, perhaps for traditional Jaguars.

I'm not a fan of the X350 though, I'd go as far as to say I hate it as much as I hate the XJ40. Just look at the one on the cover, big sad face, naff grill and it's odd sized plastic headlights discoloured with the sun. Now look at the 308 with it's bright glass headlights shining bright, low stance and hemmed in waist line. It looks new next to the faded 350.

It'll probably come to no surprise to anyone that I've said what I have, but the X308 got under my skin and now has a place in my heart.

 

This says it all, and includes the X350, which remains a beautiful car if standing alone, or even better next to it's then-competitors like the BMW 7 or the MB S-Class (talk about ugly siblings in a model family...).

 

I found this thread from a roadfly forum from august 8th 2004:

LOL at the references from only 13 years ago.....

Remember, this is a post from 2004!!!!

Top 10 reasons to choose an X308 over an X350:

10. It’s the last of the classic low-slung, Lyons-era Jaguar sedans.

9. Its faults are few, known, and fixable.

8. You can buy one for less than a Camry.

7. Door-ding repairs will not require a visit to Boeing’s plant in Seattle.

6. It is the first day-to-day reliable British luxury car.

5. No sedan since the end of WWII can equal its looks, and that includes the new Maserati Quattroporte.

4. The X308’s mechanical suspension will be repairable by its owner 25 years from now. (Lord have mercy on those seeking “air suspension” computer modules even 10 years from now.)

3. It is so old-fashioned that it can never go out of fashion.

2. It was created at that magic moment when the Ford money got through to Coventry, but not the stylists or the bean counters.

1. It will not be mistaken for a Mercury Marquis.

John Mulvihill, technical writer, San Francisco Bay Area
1998 XJ8, Anthracite/Charcoal

 

Didn't get to read the article but I always thought the x350 was an OK progression visually. If I'd never seen a 308, I would have loved it. But I guess I was in the minority. U.S. sales volumes say it all: x300 about 13,000 a year, x308 about 12,000 a year, x350/8 only about 6,000 a year. The all new modern x351 has only made things worse at only about 4,000 a year. But the beautiful Series 3 still trumps them all at well over 16,000 a year. Funny how XJ sales have only declined over the years from back when Jaguar had a horrible reputation for dismal reliability and high maintenance costs, through the Ford years as the problems were largely eliminated, to today when its probably about as good a car as any.

I think Jaguar just made a lot of mistakes in listening to the critics, the focus groups, etc. and trying to grab market share from other luxury marques they've actually lost ground. From aesthetic elements to suspension and performance, being "more like" other cars means its easier for the consumer to let his head make a "logical" choice.

 

I agree with that: come up behind a newer series XF or XJ and unless you know what to look for, just another Camry or Accord or Hundai. Wasn't like that with a Lyon's design!

 

What comparison? The 308 is beautiful sleek body of a lovely woman. The 350 well ???????

 

I think I may have related this story before, but it fits with your comment above.

I had to get a part for the BMW and I drove the XJR to the auto parts store. It was very early in the morning, and rather than defensively park as usual I just parked in the space in front of the door. The parking lot was otherwise empty. Anyway, got my part and as I was walking out of the store looking down at it in my hands I sensed that someone had parked next to me out of the corner of my eye. Inside, I was thinking "Oh great, who parked that generi-sedan next to me". I looked up and it was a Jaguar XF! Then out loud I said, "OH, FAIL!"

-Mike

 

While they could obviously have done better with the x350 proportions, I think keeping the heritage style was the right way to go. The new ones do just look like the modern "cad-clones" of everything else, like someone here said a while back. Without the distinguishing style, it really does just come down to comparing things like ride quality, performance, etc. since the uniqueness isn't really there anymore.

You can't look at a modern XJ from 1000 feet away and think "it's a jaaag!" like you could with older models.

Another odd thing I've noticed with the x350 is that it always seems to look worse in photos than it does in real life. I feel like when you're standing next to it, especially in a parking lot of Hyundais and so on, the proportions really aren't all that bad. Darker paint colors help with the look though.

The last note is a less Jag-specific one: A lot of reviews for early 2000's and late 90's seem to complain about having too many buttons on the dash/console. Later reviews of more modern cars always complain about the obfuscation of simple functions in nested menus, since almost everything is controlled from a single screen, often a touchscreen. I don't know about some people, but I'd prefer anything that I'd want to toggle while driving have its own button, and leave the nested menus to the various settings I could change while I'm not moving. And real buttons too, avoid the atrocity that is the glass slab tablet in the Tesla Model S...

 

While I do think the modern Jaguar sedans have too much in common stylistically with other manufacturers, someone in another thread here said something about rather than focusing on the similarities, to look for elements you do like and then you'll recognize that there are significant differences because you'll find that you don't like the same element the way the competition does it.

Being in the market for a modern sedan, oddly enough, I'm still drawn to Jaguar. I like the interior particularly in the X250 Portfolio. I bought my old XJ8 specifically for the ride quality (vintage styling was just a bonus). But today the only modern car on steel springs that I have found that I might could "tolerate" is the Infiniti Q70. And from all angles but one, its better looking than the XF. But I just can't get past the Infiniti's damned bug-eyed headlights (which are ridiculously common) or the way the dash is shaped and proportioned like a pair of very large breasts over the instrument cluster. Its looking like I'll probably wind up with an X250 plus $10,000 in custom suspension modifications.

But we have a bit of a bias. Looking back through history, American domestic mass market cars of the 1930s and 1950s were very similarly styled too, but then every once in a while there would be one that just stood out, a Chrysler Airflow or a Studabaker Commander. I think its really more the case that the classic XJ series is just one of those few unique cars that really stood out, so much so that it lasted for 40 years, and we lament its passing. But hey, VW brought back the Beetle. No its not the air-cooled original, but it WAS a tremendous success. Maybe someday Jaguar will give the retro strategy a try. Just don't make every one of them a "sport sedan" or at least put some optional air springs under it for me, please.