The X-Type is clearly a Jaguar. It looks more like the full-size XJ than the more retro, mid-size S-Type, which was Jaguar's first effort to broaden its customer base.

The X-type is some 7 inches shorter than the S-Type. So the challenge facing the X-Type designers was to make a relatively short car look low and long. They did it using lots of horizontal lines, body sculpting and a high-tailed wedge shape, though the wedge is more obvious in photographs than in person. The illusion is generally successful and the X-Type looks bigger on the road than its dimensions suggest.

The design of the grille and headlamps, with fluting that sweeps back over the hood, make the X-Type look like a baby XJ. The front view is broadened with two sets of side-by-side round lights flanking Jaguar's traditional horizontal split grille. This makes it look more conservative than the S-Type, which features a unique round grille. Riding the hood of the X-Type is the traditional bounding Jaguar known as the bonnet leaper. Such hood ornaments are outlawed in Europe, so X-Types there make do with the flat, full-faced Jaguar known as the growler.

The visual stance of the X-Type is not affected by the all-wheel-drive system. To try to gain awareness for the all-wheel-drive, the 2004 X-Type models have added an "AWD" badge on the trunk chrome. This is a ground-loving vehicle that makes the eye believe it is longer and lower than it is, and bigger as well. What at first blush seems to be busy-ness about the indents, horizontal lines and visual cues of Jaguarness fades with on-going exposure, evolving into acceptance and even appreciation. Anyway, the car looks better on the road than it does in pictures, or even in the showroom.