The first diesel Jaguar XF has arrived in the United States. But it’s not destined for a showroom, and it’s not headed to a waiting customer. No, Jaguar has slightly more ambitious plans for this particular oil-burning sedan.

The 2.2-liter diesel four will propel this XF on a cross-country journey that will take it from New York to Los Angeles – a trip across eleven states covering 2,800 miles – over the course of seven days. The goal is to see how far the car can travel on a single tank of fuel, and follows a similar exercise undertaken in Europe that took a different XF diesel across 816 miles from Castle Bromwich in the UK to Munich, Germany, on a single tank, returning an average of 57 miles per gallon on the EU cycle.

Observers can track this trip’s progress on the company’s Facebook page and Twitter feed, and we’ll be sure to report on the venture’s results once it’s reached the Pacific coast. Details in the press release after the jump.

One of the latest models to fall into the hands of California-based company Newport Convertible Engineering (NCE) is the new Jaguar XJ.

NCE is known for chopping off the roofs of just about anything it can, be that a Toyota Prius hybrid or a luxury Range Rover SUV.

And while we respect the work that went into developing and applying the convertible treatment to Jaguar’s flagship limousine, the end result is not what we would call elegant or stylish, especially with the soft top in normal position. Check out the rest of the pictures for yourself in our gallery after the break.

Since this is a post about the development of a European wagon, we can get two things out of the way right now: we probably won’t get it here in the United States, and there’s no use crying about it and all the other awesome wagons we don’t get. (It wasn’t the manufacturers that forced U.S. buyers into crossovers, after all.) To the point, though, the next wagon we for which we’ll lust from afar is the Jaguar XF estate, admitted by the XF’s vehicle engineering manager to be in the works.

The only other detail given away is that “It will be slightly different, with character and panache,” although we’re not sure if he means something noticeably different from the XF line (other than a giant rump) or different from luxe wagons in general. Otherwise, we have no info on when it will arrive or how much it might cost, even though as far back as 2009 Jaguar said it would have an XF wagon in the pipeline. In December of last year, the company’s global brand director said – in the context of Jaguar crossover rumors – we would see it “shortly.”

With Mercedes the last premium European automaker to offer a wagon in the U.S., Jaguar might see how an XF hauler does against the E-Class/A6 Avant/5 Series Estate mob before committing it to our shores.

An automaker can’t make it in the fringe anymore. Everything’s going either upmarket or mainstream, andJaguar has opted primarily for the latter. The company that not so long ago offered essentially one sedan and one two-door is rapidly expanding to a full lineup. So what’s the next step? According to the rumormeisters over at Autocar, it’s ditching its current model naming strategy.

According to the UK publication, Jaguar is preparing to jettison nameplates like XJ and XF in favor of a more conventional alphanumeric system like those employed by its German and Japanese rivals. The thinking is that while the faithful know Coventry’s naming system, it’s not immediately evident to newcomers and outsiders where one model sits in the line-up vis-a-vis the next. Besides, it won’t be the first time Jag has slapped alphanumeric badges like XJ8 on the flanks of its cars.

One model could possibly hold out, though, as the C-X75 heads down the road to production. Filling the shoes of the iconic XJ220, the company is reportedly toying with the idea of naming the new supercar XJ330. The original was named for the 220 mph top speed it was aimed to reach (but never did), and the new model is targeted to hit a more realistic 205 mph – or 330 km/h on the metric scale.

We know what you were thinking: the Jaguar XKR is pretty cool, but what it really needs is a plaid interior. Fortunately, Jaguar Italy and Alcantara Interiors have teamed up to realize exactly that.

And they didn’t just put in some plaid inserts like on a Volkswagen GTI, either: we mean Prince of Wales plaid covering the seats (front and rear), the armrest, the center console, the door panels, the headliner, the pillars… the works. And as you might have guessed, the pattern is applied to that soft, grippy, suede-like wonder-material we know as Alcantara.

The trim wasn’t applied to any old XKR, either: it replaced the white-stitched charcoal leather on the XKR 75, the anniversary edition of which only 75 examples were made, complete with 530-horsepower supercharged V8. You know, in case it wasn’t special enough already. See for yourself in the image gallery below. Yikes.