“IN

“IN THE JAGUAR ’ S CALM AND COOL INTERIOR, I FELT COCOONED FROM

ROAD TEST THE RUSH-HOUR MÊLÉE” JAGUAR XE 300 SPORT Looking fiery in Caldera Red, the XE 300 Sport takes to the hills outside Palermo. Journalist Henry Catchpole is all smiles as he lets the 300PS sedan loose It’s easy to dismiss the first one as an unfortunate oversight. The second can also be forgiven; after all, things often come in pairs. But after fifteen minutes of tumultuous tarmac that is riven with large fissures, potholes and apparently naturally-occurring speed humps, even a mind as slow as mine begins to suspect these road imperfections could be something of a Sicilian trend. In places, the road looks like an angry sea, whipped up into waves by the wind and then petrified by Medusa. And yet what the eye is seeing and what my body is feeling are almost disconcertingly distinct. Take this area of subsidence approaching now, for example. Without a drop in pace, with no lift of the throttle, instinct suggests that an anticipatory wince would be appropriate. Brace for impact, so to speak. But then the crater passes beneath my Jaguar XE 300 SPORT and there is barely a flutter. Impressive. No jolt through the hands, no uncomfortable compression of the spine, barely a da-dum as the wheels rise and fall in time with the suspension soaking up the impact. And this happens numerous times. The da-dums are constant enough that David Guetta could probably sample the irregular beat and have it playing in Ibiza within a week. But before long I learn not to wince before each one. I am currently somewhere between the Sicilian city of Palermo in the north and Catania on the eastern side of the Italian island. Setting off earlier this morning, I plunged into the maelstrom that is a southern Italian rush hour. From behind the digital dash and yellow-stitched steering wheel in the Jaguar’s calm and cool interior I felt cocooned from the mêlée. It was like viewing an immersive film as people switched lanes and travelled within millimetres of each other all around me. It’s no wonder that most vehicles over here seem to bear battle scars on their bodywork, although I suspect the indicator stalks are factory fresh. Keen to keep the XE 300 SPORT scuff-free and with a full complement of mirrors, I headed out of the city, THE JAGUAR 23