Jaguar planning diesel XK?

It was probably inevitable that Jaguar would consider building a diesel version of its XK coupe, and reports from Britain say a test mule has been heard (the diesel rattle, you see) running hot laps at the Nurburgring in Germany.

Diesels are now seen as a pukka high-performance engines, following Audi’s and Peugeot’s success in sports car racing, and Audi marketing a diesel-engined supercar.

British magazine, Autocar, says the diesel Jaguar XK will run the newly-developed 203kW twin-turbo 3.0-litre V6 and wouldn’t go on sale before 2011.

Whether it ever goes on sale is said to depend on Jaguar doing some research on the possible effect a diesel XK would have on 5.0-litre V8 coupe sales.

Performance levels wouldn’t be that inferior in the diesel. It would be likely to accelerate to 100km/h in less than six seconds and return fuel economy of 6.7 litres/100km (42mpg).

That’s not a lot slower than the petrol V8’s 0-100km/h pace (around 5.4 seconds) but would be achieved with much greater fuel economy.