Jaguar XF Sportbrake awaiting ISOFIX

Implementation of the ISOFIX child safety seat system for Australia has reportedly been delayed once more -- and it has left Jaguar in a bind.

The prestige brand intended to introduce its XF Sportbrake wagon to Australia late last year, but the process of gaining ADR (Australian Design Rule) approval has forced the company to push out its earliest estimate for local release to: "Early next year, at the very, very earliest," in the words of Mark Eedle, brand manager for Jaguar in Australia.

And the one tiny sticking point is whether to engineer the car for top-tether child safety seat anchorage or hope that the government will come good with its promise to unstrap ISOFIX for the Australian market. It comes down to the cost of engineering a car for one unique marketplace specification when that market has already telegraphed joining the rest of the world using the ISOFIX seat-mounting system.

"We have an engineering situation with the child [safety] seat top tethers -- that we would need to get them engineered specifically for our markets, because it's a local requirement," Eedle told motoring.com.au. "So they're not standard in the car, as it comes out of the factory."

The XF Sportbrake is already compliant with ISOFIX-based regulations around the world and could be brought to Australia immediately, once ISOFIX gets the full government go-ahead.

"Why would I go down the top tether engineering/timing process, if ISOFIX is going to be [here] sooner rather than later?" asks Eedle.

But Lotta Jakobsson from Volvo told motoring.com.au some years ago that the ideal safety provision for child safety seats was a strut to brace the seat on the floor AND top tether anchorage points complementing an ISOFIX mount. Shouldn't Jaguar just engineer the top tether anchorage points for the Sportbrake to give it a lead in child safety for other markets as well as Australia anyway?

"All our cars are engineered to whatever the local market requirements are," Eedle responded. "I'm not an engineering expert to tell you what the optimal combination of fixture points is, so I couldn't comment..."

But it's clear that Jaguar is reluctant to spend the extra development money on a full-strength system that hardly anyone would bother to use when the ISOFIX without top tether delivers child safety at least equivalent to the current system. It's one of those second-best concessions engineers are often forced to make while developing a new car.

Does it fundamentally point to a lack of demand in Australia for a vehicle such as the XF Sportbrake? Is the Australian market simply too small to warrant the development costs?

"I think there's a market for it in limited numbers, and so it would probably be an order-only car, but I would love to give people the opportunity to buy one," says Eedle.

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