Jaguar has killed off the X-Type, finally closing a chapter in its history that's been lacklustre at best, absolutely miserable at worst - Jag's compact executive sold in fractions of the numbers its German rivals generated. And in a fitting parting shot, the end of its eight-year production run will also see 300 workers at Jaguar's Halewood plant made redundant at the end of this year.

Jaguar says the job cuts are necessary in order to press on with its plan to survive in the face of tumbling car sales, but the timing of the announcement will come as a kick in the teeth to those 300 who'll be looking for work after Christmas; it's only a few days since Jaguar held a glitzy, star-studded launch for the all-new XJ luxury saloon at Chelsea's Saatchi Gallery, with the car straddled by Jay Leno and Elle Macpherson. They probably didn't do the gig just for the love.

Let's not indulge in too much tabloid-ism though: Jaguar should emerge from the next couple of years in fine form if it continues down a path of general fiscal responsibility and has stressed that all 300 workers will leave on voluntary redundancy.

Although the Halewood factory will shut down for a further three weeks in September - another cost-cutting measure - the space in the production schedule left by the X-Type's demise is expected to be filled by a mini Range Rover based on the LRX Concept, due to go on sale in 2011. That's not a given just yet, but if parent company Tata decides to use Halewood for the third Range Rover model, the Government has promised a £27m grant to JLR and the European Investment Bank will give the maker a £290m loan too. That's assuming Land Rover signs the model off for production - not a certainty given the state of new car sales.