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Adrian Clarke's avatar

Alright, against my better judgement I spent a ridiculous amount of time on Twitter yesterday talking about this Jaguar thing. Here are my considered thoughts.

1) The rot didn’t start last year, or even five years ago. It started decades ago. Their ‘gentleman’s club on wheels’ retro aesthetic has been a millstone around their neck for decades, and in the eyes of Jaguar fans any car that didn’t subscribe to this look was ‘not a Jaguar’.

2) They tried to be a British BMW twice. One under Ford with the S-Type and X-Type, and latterly under Tata with the XE and XF. It didn’t work in the first instance because the cars were perceived as too retro with younger buyers and in the second instance because the cars were dull, had poor interiors and failed to keep pace with the competition.

3)They haven’t helped themselves with their shameless continuation cars which no-one under fifty cares about.

4) They didn’t race the F-Type in GT3. Paint it purple and white, job done. Speaking of the F-Type, it was oddly positioned; sized like a Boxster and priced like a 911 without the practicality of either. The fact they kept mucking about with powertrains and tenuous limited editions in search of sales proves this. And the facelift was awful.

5) If you’ve seen the leaked images of the cancelled X391 XJ from four years ago, you know nothing of value was lost. I saw all the future Jaguars (including the J-Pace) in about 2019 for a Mr Tata presentation and with one notable exception it was all more of the same. These cars have all now been cancelled.

6) The ad that landed yesterday is tonally problematic (is a perfume ad? A clothing ad?) and seems to have bought out the very worst of the ‘car community’. I’ve seen a lot of truly disgusting and bigoted commentary about it. If half the people trying to turn a short internet spot into a culture war issue had actually bought a bloody Jaguar, then maybe the company wouldn’t be in this position.

7) The LR side of the business has been keeping the J side afloat very handsomely. For every car Jaguar sold Land Rover sells at least two and recently maybe three, at much higher transaction prices and with very healthy margins.

8) Anyone hoping for a return to ‘retro’ is in for a rude shock. Gerry doesn’t do heritage - he is very much influenced by Modernism.

9) It’s a thirty second internet spot. Let’s see what the concept looks like when it’s revealed in a couple of weeks time at Art Basel in Miami.

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Tom Klockau's avatar

The sheer incompetence regarding Jaguar's current owners makes my head hurt.

"Hi! We bought Jaguar! We're complete morons! We killed the elegant sedans and now you can get a stupid electric combover designed for fat people! Oops wait we're killing that too! You can't buy anything! Here's a stupid new logo! Durr!"

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