Some unsurprising but welcome news arrives from the U.K. with a report that Jaguar Land Rover plans to build inline-six-cylinder variants of its new Ingenium engine family.

According to a story in Car magazine, the company plan follows in the footsteps of its German rivals by, basically, modularizing the recently launched 2.0-liter four-cylinder gas and diesel engines into 3.0-liter straight-sixes, with multiple power outputs of each to motivate the middle and upper reaches of both the Jaguar and Land Rover ranges.
Such a development could be predicted after JLR invested $650 million on a plan to double the size of its spiffy new engine plant in the English Midlands, and also because of the age of its existing 5.0-liter V-8 and 3.0-liter V-6 diesel powerplants, the latter being a version of an engine co-produced with PSA Peugeot Citroën that was introduced 12 years ago. All will be turbocharged and use direct injection, with Car?s story suggesting that the gas engine will be available in neatly stratified 300-hp, 400-hp, and 500-hp versions and the diesel will come in 275-hp, 335-hp, and 400-hp iterations. That would cover everything from the more powerful variants of the Jaguar XE (seen in the photo above) that currently uses a supercharged V-6 through to the top of the Range Rover family where V-8s now rule. Jaguar has a long history of producing buttery-smooth and powerful straight-sixes, including those in the legendary E-type sports car and generations of the XJ6...