The S-Type comes with a three-year warranty and three years' free servicing The range includes the V6 automatic model. Manual cars come complete with sports seats and a five-speed gearbox

More women and younger men are the target market for the S-Type compared with Jaguar's core buyer profile

Early build suffered power steering failure while on press test in Australia, and others had poorly-matched interior trim and automatic gearboxes that fluffed up-changes. Some had poorly-fitting door seals. Jaguar recognised all these faults and said fixes had already been ordered

The S-Type is the first Jaguar to feature individual climate controls for front passengers

Jaguar also offers a parking radar warning system and split-folding rear seats

All S-Types come with leather trim, power windows and remote locking, traction and cruise control, glovebox-mounted CD stacker, eight-way power seats, front and side airbags

The V6 SE adds an electric sunroof, lumbar adjustments for the front seats, 16-inch alloy wheels, auto-dipping rear view mirror and memory pack for seats, mirrors and electrically adjustable steering column

The 3.0-litre V6 has 179kW and 300Nm of torque. The V8 engine offers 209KW and 390Nm of torque

The V6 Sport has 17-inch alloy wheels, better front seats with deeper side bolsters and a sporty punched leather facing material to go with the manual five-speeder

Performance with manual or automatic gearboxes is said to be identical, both reaching 100km/h in 8.5 seconds. Top speed is 226km/h

Despite the influence of Jac Nasser on all Ford products, the S-Type misses out on one Nasser hallmark, the analogue lock, making do with a small green LED timepiece

Judging by initial orders, Australia is Jaguar's biggest S-Type market in Asia