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  The all-new Jaguar XJ will go on sale at the end of 2009.

A single image is all the world gets to see of the new 2010 Jaguar XJ flagship for now.

The top-down shot of the car was made public this week at Auto Shanghai 2009 as the head of Jaguar Cars, Mike O'Driscoll, revealed the first solid facts about the company's new flagship.

The XJ is the second car in an all-new design direction developed by the ultra-talented Ian Callum, who broke the mould on Jaguar design with the mid-sized XF.

His work is revealed with the heavy contoured creasing on the bonnet and the short tail of the XJ in the Jaguar picture. The nose, when it is revealed, will also take the XJ well away from previous cars and create a major point of difference against the latest BMW 7 Series and the just-facelifted Mercedes S Class.

O'Driscoll confirmed in Shanghai that the XJ would go full-scale public on July 9 in London. It will be in showrooms in the UK and Europe before the end of the year.

He also said the car will be the first with Jaguar's next-generation aluminium body system, inspired from the aerospace industry, and would be available in both regular and long-wheelbase models with a range of engines from a V6 diesel to a supercharged V8 with 380 kiloWatts.

The engines will be shared with Land Rover — which, like Jaguar, is now owned by India's Tata group — and were revealed in the UK a fortnight ago at the preview of the 2010-model Land Rover models.

The only luxury feature confirmed for the new XJ is a panoramic glass roof, although O'Driscoll says the car will have "the highest standards of personal luxury and specification".

The Australian plan for the XJ is still being finalised but it will not arrive until 2010.

"The car will be launched here in March, 2010. We will have a reveal event for customers and media and dealers sometime in quarter four,"

says Tim Krieger of Jaguar Australia.

He is vague on details beyond the size and refuses to discuss prices or specifications.

"We'll get both the long and short-wheelbase cars. It's all too early for that sort of stuff."

He also says that, despite slow sales, the last of the current XJ cars will be cleared before the new ones hit Australia.

"We're in the final stages of run-out. We've got minimal levels of stock. We should have enough cars to get us through, and we're in a good position to start pre-sale activity."