Seeing another car coming up fast in the mirror, I slipped the XK into a gap between two vehicles in the slower lane. My car slowed and matched itself to the traffic speed in that lane, without my touching any of the pedal controls. And then, the passing lane coming clear again, I moved out and the Jaguar went back up to the preset cruise speed I’d been travelling at before.

It was my first experience of adaptive cruise control (ACC), which uses radar and a sophisticated computer system to ‘drive’ the car in moving traffic without any input from the driver except steering.

It worked quite amazingly. But I’m still not sure whether it is really a good thing. While I do use cruise control even in Ireland when I have a car so equipped, I’m a little dubious about giving away this much of my driving concentration.

But then, you don’t HAVE to use it. And anyway, with a car like the Jaguar XK - the classic sporty shape of the big cat marque - would you WANT to?

My ride in the latest version of the XK was mainly through the beautiful Cotswolds an hour south of Birmingham. It proved to be the perfect setting, not just as a background to the car but also as a place to enjoy its essence - superb balance, immediate response both to power input and steering wishes, and an Indian Summer open-top breeze ruffling through my remaining hair.

Even in a country where speed cameras have spread like dandelions, the twists and curves and altogether decent road surfaces in this part of England allow - and driving within the limits practically all of the time - the experience of a sense of absolute driving satisfaction.

The XK is one of the more expensive production cars around. Yet, at about E132,000, an average of 20 a year have been bought in Ireland since it was introduced in 1998.

And, get this, quite a number of these have been delivered at birthday and Christmas times, wrapped in ribbons as gifts for loved ones. Even the Jaguar people in Britain told me that, yes, it is the kind of car one ‘gives as a present’.

Hey, my latest birthday is a little past, but I never complain about late presents!

Anyway, don’t let that kind of thing frivolise what is a truly good motor car that, if you can afford it, will reward all the senses, aesthetic through exhilirative, at ambling or howling speeds (you do those last on a track, right?)

The look of the car is probably the sleekest of the variants of the Jaguar brand, and it is the true spiritual successor to the classic E-Type of the 60s. In this first revision since its introduction, they’ve not changed much on the outside. And if they’ve any sense, they won’t have by this time ten years on.

New badging, new wheel designs and a few new colours are all you’ll have in cosmetics if you still haven’t had one wrapped in ribbons. Which, of course, has the nice side of holding the value of the one you DID get as a present sometime in the last four years. The cognoscenti might also spot new headlight details, with black rather than chrome around the Xenons that are standard in the top ‘R’ version.

The really important revisions are under the bonnet, where two new 4.2-litre V8 engines power the prowl of this particular cat. They replace the 4-litre units of the older car, with 300bhp from the ‘ordinary’ version, and an extra 100 horses on tap from the ‘blown’ version.

Both have massive torque, and in the XKR around 86% of it is available from just 2000rpm. That makes for shifting from pussycat wandering to a jaguar’s chase of prey almost at the speed of a thought. All helped by a six-speed autobox that is the first of its kind in the world.

With all that power on tap, I would rarely see any need for manual operation, but the traditional Jaguar ‘J-Gate’ is still there for those who do want to shift by hand. I’ve never been a fan of this particular system, but I’m told by those who are that there’s more feel to the actual shift points than before.

As to be expected in brand that has always been driven as much by technology as by its aesthetic values, the latest XK has a swarm of busy electrons flitting thither and yon, directing handling, acceleration, emergency reaction and lots else besides.

The CATS computer active technology suspension system available as an option (and standard on the ‘R’) uses a series of sensors to provide information to the electronic control unit, which is mapped to deliver the best solution to dampers that can switch between firm and soft settings in milliseconds. When the car is started, damping defaults to the firm setting, but switches to the softer setting once the car is travelling at more than 5mph (8kp/h) on a smooth, straight road. When the XK encounters bumps, or during cornering and braking, the settings switch instantaneously to the firmer mode, reducing roll and increasing stability.

In other functions, light sensors detect low ambient light, and in Autolamp mode the sensors automatically turn on the sidelights and low beam headlights when outside light levels drop. On the new XK, turning on the wipers for more than 20 seconds automatically turns on the headlights when in Autolamp mode.

My impressions after two days of driving the XK8 and XKR, on the swoops of the Cotswolds and on motorways as well as a short stint on a track, is that at this level there is little driving difference between 300bhp and 400bhp. There’s less than a second, for instance, in the 0-60mph. But in the supercharged version, there’s a whine from the blower in full cry that has orgasmic qualities.

My personal choice would be the soft-top, because this is truly a car for taking advantage of whatever sunlight and fresh air we can get. If I could afford it, I could also afford the garage to keep it in.

In the meantime, let the message go out loud and clear to anyone who loves me: the number of birthdays I have left are a lot less than the ones I’ve had.

It really IS time for the ribbons.