My wife and I have been in Paris nearly a week, and I have seen only one Jaguar, an XF. We drove to the Normandy coast today, where I saw another XF. That's just two in a sea of Renaults, Citroëns, Peugeots, and Skodas, and a dusting of Mercedes and Land Rovers. I hope Jaguar is represented in other areas of France better. It makes me miss my XJL terribly.
John

 

The French have a somewhat quirky attitude to foreign cars, especially British ones ! At one time, (it may still be true), the size of Jaguar engines made them mega-expensive to run. This doesn't apply anymore but with no dealer network to speak of, Jaguar will struggle until they put this right.

 

Fraser, thank you for your reply. Most of the cars I've seen run on diesel, so I hope the Ingenium diesel engine helps Jaguar gain traction here. However, I've seen several Range Rover Sports since the original post, an American Dodge Charger and a Chrysler 300C. These have an appetite for fuel. It's all about a dealer network and service that's provided to the customer.

The handsomest cars are Peugeots and a close second are the large Skoda sedans. All this has been a refreshing change from the variety in America

 

Living just over a wide river (The English Channel) from the land of the cheese eating surrender monkeys, I do visit France fairly regularly (and am able to take my own car). You will find their nationalism tends to lead them towards French marques, and before the EU, the government there actively encouraged it.

Which usually pretty dire on the electrics front, French marque cars are generally "good enough", unlike, say, American designed cars which are hopeless for the European market. So why shop elsewhere.

British cars had a (deserved!) poor reputation in euroland for several decades, making them generally less desirable. Ironically, as the British quality has gone up, the German quality has gone through the floor, but the german marques remain the status badge to have (it takes a whle for build quality, good or bad, to have an impact on sales).

 

You are right about nationalism. They love their country and all products made within. I can respect that. French cars seem to have improved exponentially in terms of design since Renault and Peugeot tried to make a go of it in the States in the 1980's. The choices in French automobiles looks to be sufficient. But then I saw a great deal of Skodas, too. As far as I know those are mostly made in the Czech Republic.

Then there were the odd ducks: Range Rover Sports, American Chrysler products, Mercedes E and S class, BMW 5 and 7 series, and one Maserati Quatrroporte that had a wicked exhaust note.

We enjoyed our stay so much we're talking about the next visit.

John

 

Lol that's almost the verbatim line from movie "Dunkirk" that I just saw. Bad WW2 movie, very confusing and Brit-biased but looked great in IMAX!

What does everyone think of the idea of 'topless SUVs'? Totally ghastly imo.

 

Its what us Brits call the French

 

Hi guys, jaguars in paris are not everywhere, i live in paris not far from the eiffel tower and i have 3 jags. If you want to see jags in paris you have to go to district 16, 8, 9 and 17 otherwise you will find peugeot and citroens in other cities they hode and goes out on sundays to go to deauville and this coast.
Peace

 

I loved the XJ promo video in Paris. Tres bien!

 

I drove my Caviar XJL to France a couple of years ago. It attracted lots of attention. Even had old ladies in the street how beautiful it was.