Jaguar Kensington

Vehicle Overview

The Jaguar Kensington was designed by Italdesign as a possible successor to the then current Jaguar XJ. It featured a sleeker design and swoopy roofline, with the intention by Giugiaro being to move away from the XJ’s conventional three box design and update it for the 1990s. The chassis and mechanical components of the Jaguar Sovereign V12 were left unchanged. The operation to be proportion of the masses while leaving the wheelbase and changed concentrated on the overhangs: the front-end protruded 121 mm further on the Kensington and its tail was higher and shortened by 185 mm compared to the Sovereign. The side windows, with their flush glass, traced an extremely elegant ellipse-shaped profile. The passenger room was significantly improved due to an increase in roof height (25 mm). Jaguar did not end up putting the Kensington into production, and later the design was adapted by Italdesign for the smaller, front wheel drive Daewoo Leganza. Some reviewers have theorized that the first generation Lexus GS, also designed by Italdesign, was also an evolution of the Kensington’s design, but Italdesign clarified that the GS concept was developed in 1988, long before the Kensington.