"Unmistakably... a Jaguar," the carmaker said on launching its X-type.

"The X-type exemplifies Jaguar's new performance spirit, offering a fresh, contemporary expression of Jaguar values in a compact stylish sports saloon," managing director Jonathan Browning added.

The new model may share 20% of its components with the Ford Mondeo, but its "nimble and sporting driving dynamics" make it a car for "driving enthusiasts", the company blurb continues.

Indeed, despite the car's pedigree, the X-type is aimed not at the ranks of "Mondeo men", the Middle English of motorists identified by deputy prime minister John Prescott.

Nor is this Jaguar designed to appeal to Mr "two Jags" Prescott himself.

"Customers for the X-type typically will be younger than the traditional Jaguar buyers with notably different needs," Mr Browning said.

"They may be young professionals, perhaps starting a family, whose cars have to fulfil a multitude of different roles - lengthy motorway trips on business, energetic leisure activities with friends."

Baby Jag 30-something

The car's nickname, the "Baby Jag", could be as much a reference to the model's target customer base as its small (for Jaguar) size and, at �22,000, relatively low price.

The carmaker has spent more than 18 months "re-educating" its dealers to focus on attracting 30-somethings rather than the sheepskin-jacketed, middle-aged customers of yore.

"We want people to respond by saying: 'New Jaguar, new attitude'," Phil Cazaly, Jaguar's global marketing director, told the Financial Times.

"This car has to appeal to a different audience - stylish, relaxed, cafe society."

And to further its task of attracting the affluent young, the carmaker on Wednesday invited Liverpool and England international footballer Michael Owen to try out the X-type.

'Better than expected'

The carmaker must hope the striker was at least as impressed with the car as the critics and analysts who test drove the model on highways and byways around Dijon, France.

"The X-type is better than expected, but not as good as it could be," said Peter Schmidt, managing director of UK automotive research firm AID.

Considering Jaguar designers were urged to base the model around the Mondeo, the carmaker has "done a fine job", he added.

"The exterior package was exciting, but the interior left me underwhelmed," quibbled John Lawson, auto analyst at investment bank Schroder Salomon Smith Barney.

"It's a little short of the exclusiveness that Jaguar customers have been used to in the past."

Not that that has damaged sales, with Jaguar reporting �100m worth of pre-orders.

And nor should the customers who have secured the car, which goes on sale in three weeks, be too disappointed, the critics concluded.

It's just, they said, that the model might have been better if they had started off with a clean sheet, and perhaps been more inventive up-front, giving alternatives to the 2.5 litre and 3.0 litre options...

It's enough to make a footballer weep.