Gold Medal For Jaguar X-TYPE

The Jaguar X-TYPE has collected its first award of 2002, winning the Gold prize at the recent Fleet Excellence Awards. The X-TYPE took top honours in the prestigious User Chooser category, voted for by the readers of Fleet Week and Fleet Management magazines.

Guy Bird, Editor of Fleet Management, commented: "The Jaguar X-TYPE was voted the most exciting car to come out last year by our readers. As a result I'm sure we will see more and more X-TYPES on UK fleets in the coming year."

Jaguar's Corporate Operations Manager, John Abel, welcomed the award: "This award recognises the significance of the Jaguar X-TYPE for the UK fleet sector. We are particularly pleased with the recognition from fleet managers voting for these awards."

The Fleet Excellence Award comes just a week after the new 2 litre X-TYPE made its world debut at the Brussels Motorshow, alongside the new 2.5 litre S-TYPE and the rest of the new S-TYPE range.

The 2 litre X-TYPE will cost from £19,995, and the new S-TYPE range will be priced from £24,950 for the 2.5 litre entry model. Both will go on sale from March.

"The introduction of these two cars marks a major step forward in Jaguar becoming more accessible to a wider audience," commented Mike Beasley, Jaguar’s Managing Director.

"Business and private buyers alike can now embrace the Jaguar brand at a very aggressive price and go on to move up our range of cars."

In 2001 Jaguar sales globally exceeded 100,000 cars – the first time in its 80 year history that the marque has achieved this total in a year, and the fourth successive year of record sales. The UK sales total of 22,119 was also a record, some 47% up on 2000.