WE’D heard plenty about this car - the new 3.0-litre twin turbo V6 with sports sedan performance and economy car fuel consumption.

The sexy Ian Callum-penned body reminiscent of something from Aston Martin and the new-age interior that ushers in a raft of new features, sonic sound and user-friendly controls. An impressive beast.

The price is up there against its direct competition from Audi, BMW and Mercedes but you would have the Jag on your shortlist because of the way it looks and goes - a real standout.

This is version two of this generation XF and is a whole lot better than the 2006/7 models even though they look similar. The big news is better engines all round including this category killing 600Nm, 3.0-litre twin-turbo diesel, a derivative of the previous 2.7.

That’s why we ventured forth in the XF diesel to our favourite driver’s road crammed with curves and thin on traffic.

It’s a fair call to assess the Jag from a sporty standpoint because that’s exactly what it is, a diesel sports sedan. BMW has something similar in the 330d and the new Mercedes E-Class diesel is a dab hand in the curves too.

Punch the sport button to sharpen the dynamics and throttle response, select Sport on the rotary dial-up gear selector and away we went, clicking on the steering wheel paddles to change up and down the six-speed ‘box.

While the 1820kg weight tells at times, the medium-large Jag diesel really gets going when you want it to. Surfing that hefty 600Nm whack of torque is wonderful and makes gear changes almost redundant once you get the hang of it.

It’s an interesting diesel for other reasons, too - like the way it pulls hard to near redline and also its uncanny smoothness and quietness.

The ride is firm in sport but not too firm and the steering and brakes are similarly calibrated - sharp enough to please a driver who enjoys his or her wheel time. We pushed the big Jag fairly hard and the brakes didn’t lose bite.

Then, after we were done, it was out on to the freeway and into cruise control with the softer drive mode selected. We let the adaptive cruise control system take charge - and almost put our feet up.

At speed on the freeway, the diesel is near Lexus-quiet and deceptively fast to the point of making frequent speedo checks mandatory. It’s too easy to go way over the limit and not know it. We wafted along for hundreds of kilometres in our leather cocoon/sound pod and wanted to keep on going - it’s that sort of car, stressless.

Then at some traffic lights we gave it full throttle off the line and were impressed with the acceleration. It nails a 0-100km/h sprint in 6.4 seconds and consumes a scant 6.4 litres/100km.

So, it was established that the Jag diesel measures up on the performance scale, in luxury terms it won’t disappoint either.

The interior is all style and function with a touch screen controller and a multi-function wheel. The front seats and wheel are fully electrically adjustable.

There’s plenty of room inside for four and the boot is large.

Our only question is why would you spend more on the V8 petrol and supercharged V8 petrol models when this Jag XF fills the bill admirably.