So what was all the fuss about, again?
The new Jaguar launched its new Type 00 Concept in Miami today. Thankfully, we still have an internet as there were zero androgynous models in sight.
(To be fair, I think the models might have made an appearance if the kerfuffle of the last two weeks hadn’t turned out the way it did. But that’s neither here nor there.)
The new car was shown in two bold new colours – London Blue and Miami Pink – yet another signal of Jaguar’s determination to shatter some expectations.
Here you go….
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The outside
“As if a Tesla Cybertruck humped a Rolls Royce Spectre”, to paraphrase one comment I heard. And it’s a little bit true.
That’s not so say I don’t like it, though.
I do. I really do.
We all need to keep in mind that this is a concept. The first car that Jaguar will release in a couple of years from now is actually a 4-door GT car, so while it’ll take some styling cues from this concept, it’s not going to be this concept. Jaguar insist that they wouldn’t make a concept unless it was close to reality, but let’s see how close the new cars are to this, when they arrive.
As a styling exercise and an indication of what’s to come, I think they’ve kicked some goals here.
It has presence. And attitude. It looks confident. Strong.
Jaguars need to look strong, I think. The last 10-15 years have seen their best cars look strong, at the expense of the rest of the range. The R and R-S models carried a confidence and strength fitting for the brand. The standard models, sadly, did not. The Jaguars we people-of-a-certain-age grew up with – Jaguars from the 60s, 70s and 80s – carried their confidence in a form of stately poise and elegance.
I think this new Type 00 has that, but with an edge. On the exterior, at least.
I’d like to echo Harry Metcalf’s thoughts on Jaguar’s intended audience for this car. It’s size and boldness – to me – scream US and China. Not necessarily in that order. And while Harry’s a little down on their chances of success due to the dampening of the Chinese market, specifically, and the dampened state of EV sales, generally, I disagree. I think that a few years of development and some maturing in the market will give Jaguar a better-than-even chance of success – IF THE PRODUCT IS GOOD. The eternal caveat.
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The Inside
Noting that, once again, this is a concept, the interior is where the new Jaguar and I part ways.
The Macquarie Dictionary’s Word Of The Year is ‘enshittification’.
“The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”
I’d like to argue that the trend towards screen-only interiors is part of the enshittification of what should be enthusiast automobiles.
I’ve been waiting for a company to buck the trend and restore some elegance – and function-oriented manual controls – to a car interior. There have been several studies into vehicle UI and how much better a set of good controls are, compared to screens. Thus, I had very high hopes for this Jaguar on the inside.
Sadly, no. It’s been enshittified.
Those flat bits at the front of the ‘dashboard’ rotate upwards to provide two wide screens, one either side of the center column.
I hope the real car has something different, but I think I’m pushing uphill on that one.
It’s very disappointing. Now that the novelty of Tesla’s iPad interior is over, I figured the industry might return to a more UI-friendly position. Sadly, it seems like the industry is still in love with a) the cheap cost of screens compared to good manual controls, and b) the fancy pictures and patterns they can put on them.
The screens look like they could be 100% real and carried over into the car.
The rest of the interior – not so much. It features Travertine, for goodness sake! Are they really going to put stone into a car?
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The Future
I love the exterior.
I don’t love the interior.
I like the boldness of Jaguar to go for this hard reset, and make a new future for itself. It’s trajectory was not good. Something had to give. They might still fail and be gone in 5 years, but at least they have a chance, and they’re not going to die wondering. And I’m glad Tata, the parent company, has given them the space to do it.
There’s been plenty of concern in the Jaguar community (and waaaaaaaaaaay more stupidity outside of it) about Jaguar’s decision to leave its heritage behind.
At the Type 00 launch in Miami, Jaguar’s Chief Creative Officer, Gerry McGovern, said:
Jaguar has no desire to be loved by everybody. [Type 00] has already stirred emotions, and it will continue to. Some may love it now. Some may love it later. Some may never love it. And that’s OK. That’s what fearless creativity does. This is the original essence of Jaguar, and for me, it’s been an honour lead the creative reimagining of this great British brand.”
I have a feeling that with time, more people are going to return to Jaguar than the ferocity of the last few weeks would have us believe. Again, if the product is good, and the brand is strong, it will carry the name well.
I don’t agree with the popular proposition that the company is willing people to leave. Not at all. This is not a middle finger to Jag’s traditional base, IMHO. I think they’d like to carry as many Jaguar fans with them as they can. They’re just not willing to be held hostage by them. Some see that as reckless (because it is, a little). Others see it as courageous (again, because it is).
The physical footprint and the visual language of this Type 00 concept gives me some hope.
I just hope they ditch the screens.
I think it may have appropriated some of the design of the Saab Aero X concept in relation to the A pillar and roof angles, the almost hockey stick and the proportion of the bonnet.
Might be seeing things and mourning but would be interested in your thoughts.
It’s funny. I had a short paragraph about this in the story but I took it out.
A few people have mentioned it. And I can see it, too. But I’m not paying it any mind. The windscreen looks a tiny bit like it from the side (thought it’s much more square from the front) and it’s got a long hood. Meh.
I think it’s more the mourning, as you suggest. It would have been great to see a production car with the Aero-X’s DNA. And it’s a little bit of a sting to see Jag get a fighting chance that Saab didn’t.
I came down to the comments to say the side profile (and only the side) looks like a strech Aero X, and then found this comment. Front and back nothing like the Aero X.
I think it’s conincedence rather than anything else as there’s only so much you can do with a side profile for a coupe.
Forgot to say, totally with you on tablets for dashboards. They are a disastrous change in terms of ergonomics, safety (massive distraction- how can this be legal when using a phone is banned?)
There is also the issue that those who have disability affecting their left/right arm (depending on market) and have adaption to their vehicle to compensate for this (think steering wheel with knob attached (no not a politician lol) may not be able to operate the thing. This could be tantamount to disability discrimination.
Hi Swade and thanks for keeping up the good work.
I like the exterior too. It’s genuinely innovative (unless you want to point to something like the Lincoln Continental MkV, or John Dodd’s Shooting Brake!), but it also has a (very) vague resemblance to recent Jaguars incl. the F-Pace and E-Pace. It looks authoritative and well-balanced, but also fun and approachable in a swinging 60s London kind of way.
I do also feel like the proliferation of Chinese SUV-type vehicles is going to cause a backlash against the SUV generally, and before long people are going to start looking for something different just like this… though perhaps not in the numbers that are going to sustain Jaguar.
I love old-school Jaguars conceptually – actually I still have a Mk2, and my dad still has my old X300 XJR that I couldn’t bear to sell… However *unless the product is good* I fear for their sustainability, along with quite a lot of the old-school brands I admire and still identify with. Citroen for example has recently pulled out of Australia and looks like a hard sell elsewhere. Alfa, Peugeot and even Mercedes seem pretty uninspired as well in the last 5 years. And I *hope* that Maserati’s SUVs will keep them going for the next little while.
Perhaps the one exception is Porsche, which has build a catalogue of desirable cars while remaining true to their roots. As a classic car tragic probably the only new car I’d have any interested in whatsoever is the Taycan RWD…
Ultimately though, car companies have always come and gone, and it could be that we’re seeing a changing of the guard. Reminds me of some lyrics from Mitski – “I always knew the world moves on, I just didn’t know it would go without me”. 😆
Oh er, come to think of it it does also look quite a lot like the Alfa Brera, particularly the concept car… just a bit longer. https://www.italdesign.it/en/project/brera/
I had a little bit of a Saab Aero X flash from the A-pillar and angles, too. But yeah, mourning for what Saab might have been!
External shape in general looks very old fashioned to me – just add a V-8 and trumpets sticking out of the bonnet and it looks like a Hot-Wheels model from 30 years ago!
And yep, I’m with you on the tablet dashboards. They may have a place for setting some functions / preferences, but not for on-the-move stuff – they draw your eye and concentration from the road. Dreadful from a UI / ergonomics PoV.
I’d not seen the situation similarity between Jaguar and Saab before until you pointed it out.
I think that I love most or all of the exterior. In person viewing is necessary to be certain.
I absolutely HATE the interior. My God, I hope those photos are of a mock-up buck created only to provide dimensions for the actual interior & dashboard components
I don’t love the exterior, but it’s just a render of a model that they won’t release. To my mind it doesn’t flow well, mainly because the lines aren’t resolved. It’s too much “CAD” and not enough “clay.” It also looks like it may be based on a too-large Range Rover platform, but that’s to be expected.
The interior is typical concept-car.
The question is “will it gel with gel with customers’ mindsets when it is released?” The XJ-R is an example of a design that was ahead of its time. A friend’s dad had an early one (four headlight in North America), and I thought it was absolutely stunning in the 1980s, but customers weren’t as impressed 10 years earlier. Also, teenage boys are not their target audience!
Side note: Swade, you repeated the meme that EV sales are “dampened.” That’s not the case, they are up by double-digits in major markets. The EU is still slightly down YTD because of tax changes in Germany, but they are up YoY. December numbers come-out mid-month, which will probably put the EU back in the positive YTD.
Hey Bernard,
Apologies if I’m a tad under-researched on the EV sales thing. But I’m not sure I’m completely out of the ballpark with the word ‘dampened’. Here in Australia, people are choosing hybrids more than EV’s right now. EV sales fell by 25% in the Sept quarter and market share fell by a point and a half. Globally, you’re right as it’s a record year but the decision by many companies to push out their BEV releases is notable.
I’ll definitely look harder next time.
Swade, no worries. I follow greencarcongress to get daily snippets on environment-related transportation news, they are a very succinct source of such information. They generally publish news releases without too much comment or bias (although some topics get quite agitated in the comments section, of course).
It’s really hard to get unbiased news from this sector, I think it’s because automotive journalism isn’t considered real journalism. Here in Canada, newspaper automotive writers aren’t even allowed to call themselves journalists, they are “special collaborators.” That’s partly because much of their coverage depends on gifts from the industry that they cover, but also because it’s opinion instead of fact. Also, for whatever reasons, the people who cover this beat tend to cling to antiquated ideas and biases. We saw this a lot when you were covering Saab, when every automotive writer called them “quirky,” and “not premium.” I remember mentioning research that showed that Saab’s customers mostly moved to so-called premium brands (Volvo and the German 3), so they were obviously in the premium market all along! Customers knew this, but automotive writers couldn’t be bothered to research it.
Tata needs to sack all of Jaguar’s top brass and do a rethink of the rethink.
Per your suggestion, Steven, I watched Uncle Harry’s review. Like everything Mr Evo does, he leaned nicely into the positives and handled the negatives with kid gloves. No cars until 2026? People will only vaguely recall the embarrassment of this launch and the world will have moved on.
Jaguar just Fiskered themselves.
Echoing Stephen W. there’s a ton of Aero X from the midline forward. And also Koenigsegg. The only catch is those other two examples were/are much more successful in their execution.
The other aspect that’s plain is this concept owes a lot to Audi and the Bauhaus school. There’s a ton of A7 here. Those crisp, cold arcs and edges evoke Audi to a “TT” (harhar). They do nothing to say Jaguar.
When Uncle Harry said “I care about Jaguar,” that came from the heart and I felt that too. Because I do as well. And for years I’ve thought Jag has been missing the plot to play the sad Lincoln/Cadillac game of forgetting their own heritage to chase what other carmakers had come up with. When you play this game and steadily lose sales, the play is to do something very bold.
“Grace, space, pace” may sound fusty to modern ears but those core values were the touchstone from where this reimagining should have sprung. Instead, what we got was a desperate yet oddly arrogant grab for attention for attention’s sake. Think Kering and what that design team did to f**k Gucci. Only in Gucci’s case, they still sell the classic horsebit loafer.