Jaguar kills off its model line, with no clear plan for the future

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Michel Van said:
i have impression to see crossover of a brick and soap bar,
this not good from aesthetic sale point

the front is simply ugly, look more closed Air intake of old soviet Fighter.
the lights are wrong, so wrong positions they increase the high of fake intake even more !
the Wheels are far to big for the Car from proportion side.
Also the car is too low for practical driving, try to drive that car over Belgium highway...
what i think of back side of type 00, i keep quiet for politeness.

Let me gess
DEI play a role for hiring the designer of type 00 ?
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To be fair, it's not a prototype but a concept car. Concept cars have the role of introducing ideas and the more shocking they are the better. One article said that it still didn't look real in daylight, more like a simple render of itself. I agree. The only prototypes we've seen have been heavily disguised. That said, it has been said that the production car will look as much like the concept as possible.

I like sf, so I'm seeing an artefact from the planet Fashion. OK, that's... very interesting. Tell me more about your customs.

Personally, I'll be glad if enough people buy it because I want to see Jaguar's name about. However, I like Morgan's philosophy, which used to be Lotus': light weight, small footprint, timeless design, tweed outfit essential, only technology that's necessary, and who cares if it looks funny. If I had the money...
 
Rhinocrates said:
However, I like Morgan's philosophy, which used to be Lotus': light weight, small footprint, timeless design, tweed outfit essential, only technology that's necessary, and who cares if it looks funny. If I had the money...
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Don't forget the rogueish moustache; Dirk Dastardly or Graham Hill style. You can't drive a Jaaaaaaaaag without one.
 
Rhinocrates said:
Personally, I'll be glad if enough people buy it because I want to see Jaguar's name about. However, I like Morgan's philosophy, which used to be Lotus': light weight, small footprint, timeless design, tweed outfit essential, only technology that's necessary, and who cares if it looks funny. If I had the money...
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Caterham Super 7.
 
The non-British options would be a Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ or Mazda Miata.

Miatas are ridiculously fun to drive, absolutely giggle-inducing whether you're carving up a twisty road or drifting it around a parking lot. And you can get a detachable hardtop if you don't like a canvas convertible top.
 
Yeah I never got on with the MX5. My mum had one and it was possibly the most unenthusiastic engine I've ever had the displeasure of driving.

Seems they copied the MGB a little too thoroughly.

Now a Porsche Cayman 3.4S is another story. But we're digressing, and somewhat off-topic.

Having worked at Gaydon for the majority of the last 15 years, at both JLR and AML I've been lucky enough to drive pretty much everything they've built over the last 20 years. For me, the first gen XF and final XJ are probably the best offerings of the lot. The XF-RS was just fantastic around the Nurburgring, as was the XJR. And for both, the base models were just a great place to be on a journey in the real world, and they were peak JLR quality and reliability too. So at least on par with German efforts of the time.
 
scautomoton said:
Yeah I never got on with the MX5. My mum had one and it was possibly the most unenthusiastic engine I've ever had the displeasure of driving.

Seems they copied the MGB a little too thoroughly.

Now a Porsche Cayman 3.4S is another story. But we're digressing, and somewhat off-topic.

Having worked at Gaydon for the majority of the last 15 years, at both JLR and AML I've been lucky enough to drive pretty much everything they've built over the last 20 years. For me, the first gen XF and final XJ are probably the best offerings of the lot. The XF-RS was just fantastic around the Nurburgring, as was the XJR. And for both, the base models were just a great place to be on a journey in the real world, and they were peak JLR quality and reliability too. So at least on par with German efforts of the time.
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There's nothing especially wrong with Mazda's engines. I do know that Mazda sells a 1.5 liter MX5 in the UK, and that engine has a very long stroke, which always makes an engine reluctant to pick up RPMs.

As far as JLR, Tata's ownership has been better than Ford's. Admittedly, German reliability is not a very high benchmark by North American standards. BMWs, Mercedes and Audis are the sort of cars that are fine to lease new but will eat a second or third owner alive with repair bills. I The real problem with Jaguar is that saloons, otherwise known as sedans, just don't sell well outside of China. In America, the Mercedes S-Class and BMW 7-series have the worst resale value of any vehicles sold. What chance did the last generation XJ have as an also ran? Or for that matter the bland second gen XF or well reviewed XE? Diesel Ingenium aside, Jaguar was selling better cars than they had historically, albeit into a market that just didn't want cars at all, but SUVs and trucks.
 
The MX-5 is a bit old school, it's all about maintaining momentum and revs.

Try to drive any engine like that, as you would the 3.4 et al Boxster engine and you will be disappointed every time. Drive it like an old school Lotus 7 or a mini and you will get it completely.

Watch an adept driver in a Citroen 2CV, see how they manmage to carve through traffic with ease for inspiration.
 
Oh I understand it completely. I have had 3 Citroen AXs over the years. All 1.0L, sub 600kg with only 45bhp. Probably the most fun cars I've had in my life. But the MX-5 just didn't do it for me. The 1990 Honda Civic 1.6 - 16v I had however, ticked all the right boxes; lightweight, zingy engine, darty steering.

A car needs to deliver one of two things for me to enjoy it; either a) its so slow you can drive it flat out everywhere, but light enough that you can embarrass much more expensive cars (aka Citroen AX :) ), or b) its got significantly more power than grip so that you have to tame The Beast, otherwise it'll kill you.

Currently, I'm in b.... :D
 
scautomoton said:
Oh I understand it completely. I have had 3 Citroen AXs over the years. All 1.0L, sub 600kg with only 45bhp. Probably the most fun cars I've had in my life. But the MX-5 just didn't do it for me. The 1990 Honda Civic 1.6 - 16v I had however, ticked all the right boxes; lightweight, zingy engine, darty steering.

A car needs to deliver one of two things for me to enjoy it; either a) its so slow you can drive it flat out everywhere, but light enough that you can embarrass much more expensive cars (aka Citroen AX :) ), or b) its got significantly more power than grip so that you have to tame The Beast, otherwise it'll kill you.

Currently, I'm in b.... :D
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If you can find an older Miata with the 1.8L, those are fun. I don't think they were ever offered in the US with a 1.5L. I think the new Miatas in the US are up to a 2.4L that is still super rev-happy. 8500rpm redline kind of fun.

All the road-racers I know online say to start out in the Miata Spec racing class, you will learn how to keep your speed up through the corners because the cars don't have enough power to get back up to speed if you jump on the brakes like F1 cars do.
 
It will never happen but, I would be beside myself to have a Porsche 912, old school. Four cylinders and 1600 or 2 litre.

Sadly they are telephone numbers now.
 
From the conjoined brand, Range Rover, the second generation Velar prototype. It's an EV and its place in Range Rover's spectrum is furthest from the SUV end and closest to the car end.

This surprised me:

The roofline looks raked and more dynamic, but of particular note is the robust camera and antennae array on the roof – coupled with a relatively fake looking rear window. We’re used to seeing mocked-up and disguised prototypes winter testing, but this particular combination of fake window and sensor array points to one thing: a Polestar 4-style setup without a window.

https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/spy-shots/range-rover/velar-electric/
Reading that, it's now obvious in the rear three-quarter view.

Now the rationale given by Polestar for the deletion of the rear window in the 4 and upcoming 5 is that moving the rear bulkhead back allows greater interior space but it has to be higher, while a fastback roofline gives better aerodynamics. The combination gives a coupe-like silhouette without compromising rear space but ends up with a rear window too small to be useful. Cameras supposedly compensate well enough or are even better for this.

The new Jaguar will certainly share many components with the Velar 2 (as well as the Range Rover Electric) and both have been designed under the direction of JLR's chief designer, Gerry McGovern. He's fan of clean modernism in design and to me, modern Range Rovers carry on that aesthetic from the first generation Range Rover and the Rover SD1 by way of the Rovers of Roy Axe and Gordon Sked. Since the Velar 2 is going to be a fastback, it will look even more like an SD1.

JLR currently owns the rights to the Rover brand.

A bit of history of the SD1. The model here has the updated but still handsome interior while the early ones were more pure.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkmzfdHyBIQ&t=477s&ab_channel=Number27


Land Rover's first go at a 'conventional' car:

https://www.aronline.co.uk/concepts-and-prototypes/road-rover/
You may not want to click on that link - it's rather... odd-looking. A few years back RR was rumoured to be reviving the Road Rover name and concept for a new EV but it was cancelled at around the same time as the similarly unreleased last Jaguar XJ. The Velar 2 seems to be filling that role now though.

Anyway, the point is, Jaguar, Range Rover, Land Rover have become very closely tied together over the years and Jaguar's current strategy has to be understood within the context of that relationship. Without it, it certainly would be an ex-cat.
 

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Rhinocrates said:
Anyway, the point is, Jaguar, Range Rover, Land Rover have become very closely tied together over the years and Jaguar's current strategy has to be understood within the context of that relationship. Without it, it certainly would be an ex-cat.
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Right, which is why I'm confused about Jaguar building SUVs at all.

If you want a British SUV, it's called a Rover. full stop.

If you want a British car, it's called a Jaguar. (Or Aston-Martin, or McLaren, if you're getting into hypercars)
 
Scott Kenny said:
Right, which is why I'm confused about Jaguar building SUVs at all.

If you want a British SUV, it's called a Rover. full stop.
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Hmm, not in the UK. Range Rover make big armchairs that go offroad (or Chelsea high street), Rover made gradually worse road cars until they went out of business. the two are very distinct.

Also, having worked on both F-Pace and Velar I can tell you the design direction, target markets and outright capability of the two vehicles is quite different. Certainly on-road the Jag was much better, but could not go offroad like the Velar could. Velar also had a much more luxury interior at a time when Jag was being made into a mainstream premium brand, so had fairly generic material choices inside.
 
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I drove a Rover 111 some times, didn't care much for its looks, but it handled quite nicely. Good engine. Then I would get back into my two-door Saab, the one that would list noticeably to the side where I had opened one of its doors. Different experience.
 
scautomoton said:
Hmm, not in the UK. Range Rover make big armchairs that go offroad (or Chelsea high street), Rover made gradually worse road cars until they went out of business. the two are very distinct.

Also, having worked on both F-Pace and Velar I can tell you the design direction, target markets and outright capability of the two vehicles is quite different. Certainly on-road the Jag was much better, but could not go offroad like the Velar could. Velar also had a much more luxury interior at a time when Jag was being made into a mainstream premium brand, so had fairly generic material choices inside.
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Interesting. If the Velar 2 is a fastback sedan and Jaguar's new lineup is said to be the 4-door GT, a limousine and an SUV, I wonder how they're going to co-ordinate the brand and their models. Maybe they decided that the Velar was too close to the Range Sport in its current form.

I do know that based on the leaked photos of the cancelled XJ and 'J-Pace' they were heading into a dead end of self-imitation.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...o-clear-plan-for-the-future.44779/post-728367
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...o-clear-plan-for-the-future.44779/post-729049
 
Well there's a shock, I thought...

Tata Offloads Jaguar to Geely​


https://autodrive.com.bd/posts/tata-offloads-jaguar-to-geely
...until I read it all.

With this move, another iconic British brand moves into Chinese hands. While the deal raises plenty of questions about Jaguar’s long-term direction, there’s at least one certainty: this particular bit of news is only good for today. Happy April 1st.
 
Rhinocrates said:
Well there's a shock, I thought...

Tata Offloads Jaguar to Geely​


https://autodrive.com.bd/posts/tata-offloads-jaguar-to-geely
...until I read it all.

With this move, another iconic British brand moves into Chinese hands. While the deal raises plenty of questions about Jaguar’s long-term direction, there’s at least one certainty: this particular bit of news is only good for today. Happy April 1st.
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It's not particularly plausible as an April Fools joke as Jaguar has absolutely no brand equity or customer good will left. What is there to buy?
 
Scott Kenny said:
The factory and workers.
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Castle Bromwich Assembly, where all Jaguar sedans and sports cars were assembled, was closed aside from a body panel stamping plant. The peculiar and unloved E-Pace was built under contract in Austria and the F-Pace came from Sollihul, which is still an active Land Rover plant. There literally is nothing left to sell in terms of physical infrastructure. Except maybe the tooling and dies for scrap.
 
Looks like it's having an influence even before it goes into production.

Seriously though, Chinese and other Asian buyers have distinct tastes compared to Europeans and Americans - more traditional saloon silhouette, long bluff nose, logs of bling. Jaguar and Roewe must be drinking from the same well (you can guess what's in the water for yourself).

Yes, the designer's European, but the Roewe board would have set the brief and approved the result.

Roewe is currently an entry level brand of SAIC, but they started off picking up the remnants of Rover, continuing a production version of the 75. Pronounced 'Rong-way' (sic), the name was judged as most evocative of the old brand and it's logo is an attempt to imitate British style, with a pseudo-heraldic design featuring a pair of lions.

The Chinese car industry is facing calls to consolidate and it could be that SAIC is looking to climb on the luxury lifeboat I've mentioned above.

https://www.carscoops.com/2025/04/the-pearl-of-china-was-penned-by-former-rolls-royce-design-chief/
Roewe-Pearl-1-copy-2048x1153.jpg
 
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Say what you will,* but even MPVs and SUVs follow the trend. These are two separate brands: Zeekr (black van) and Yangwang (silver SUV). Yes, that is actual gold plating.

*Maybe check out the Woodech on the Furry Avatars of Doom thread.
 

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NOt sure how relevant it is, but I've read that the bluff fronts on modern cars is for pedestrian safety. AIUI, with then advent of automatic braking, it's less harmful for a a pedestrian to be pushed down in front of the vehicle by the bluff front shape, whereas 'sporty' angled back front styling tends to throw the pedestrian up onto the bonnet, from where they roll off sideways into the next lane of moving traffic . . .

cheers,
Robin
 
That man is an imbecile. Sales have plummeted because with the exception of the F-Pace, starting over a year ago Jaguar has ceased production of all internal combustion cars as of July 2024, as they planned and announced as far back as 2021. Uniquely, they can afford to do that because the Land Rover wing of JLR is practically printing its own money.

If post hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy, what does that make ante hoc? As I said, an imbecile.

So that's not news, it's misrepresentation. As for the ad agency, they had one job, they did it and they're not on retainer. Also not news. Plus, British newspapers are highly partisan and this guy references the Telegraph and the Daily Mail - publications deeply enmeshed in the culture war and not known for their journalistic objectivity (The Telegraph took Russian money for stories, had Boris Johnson as a columnist, and is currently for sale but unable to find a buyer while the Mail has a very sordid, near-treasonous past - google 'Rothermere' and 'Mosley.' It isn't called the Daily Heil for nothing).
 
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Huh - that's the first case of a commercial Western company officially committing harakiri/seppuku in the capitalist market space in my memory and awareness. Man, I almost wish I'd like popcorn by now...
 
So far...

A short interview with Nick White, director of communications at Jaguar.

The production GT is likely to be revealed at the end of the year.

https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-news/industry-news/jaguar/rebrand-six-months-on/
‘It takes three to five years to transform brands,’ White tells me on the Jaguar team’s yacht ‘and we’re very early in that journey.’ Things kicked off in dramatic style in November, with a campaign devised by JLR and consultancy firm Accenture Song – but the whole process will take half a decade in total.

‘When we set up our reimagined strategy in 2021, we wanted to keep the new and old apart,’ White explains. The initial launch was designed to disrupt, defy and reinvent Jaguar as an exciting, all-electric premium brand. Think of it as the new Bentley for techy millionaires and you’re pretty much there. The format for this marketing Ctrl+Alt+Del was a visually punchy advert and the launch of a bold new design language.

To that end, the bold Type 00 concept was shown alongside the new campaign and it previewed production four-door GT that’ll riff off the same design language. After that, we’ll probably get a couple of SUVs because that’s where the volume and profit is.

‘We had an incredible reaction,’ says White, rounding up the positive, negative and at times deeply worrying reactions the campaign generated. However, in numeric terms and eyeballs reached, the campaign was a huge success and overwhelmingly positive.

‘We had nearly a billion impressions on PR, on social media, OTS (opportunity to see) and social impressions – and we spent pretty much nothing on marketing,’ he says. ‘If you said to me in early November, we were going to be the most talked about brand in the world for six weeks I’d have laughed.’

‘We talk about China, where luxury customers are in their early 30s, and they spend their life on WeChat,’ White adds. ‘You’ve got around a billion views a day on WeChat. We’re learning how you take the main strategy and tailor it to the market in terms of the messaging and the media mix.’
 
This one's quite detailed and lengthy at nearly three quarters of an hour, so if you watch it, start watching when you have the time.

In this exclusive episode of the Fully Charged Show Podcast, Jaguar Managing Director Rawdon Glover shares the story behind the brand’s controversial 2024 rebrand. Glover gives us the inside track on why the iconic British marque halted UK car sales, pivoted to all-electric luxury, and ignited a storm of debate with a polarising teaser campaign that featured… no cars.From dealing with backlash to unveiling the striking Type 00 concept, this is an insight into the risk that comes with reinvention, the future of one of the UK’s most storied automotive brands and the company's conviction that they simply do not want to be loved by everyone.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvPf2JT5ws4&t=22s&ab_channel=EverythingElectricShow
 
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