Would it have been easier to close down Jaguar and start again? Perhaps so. Its Reimagine plan to reinvent itself as a maker of more exclusive, luxurious electric cars throws out everything but the brand name, and the connotations a brand name brings – for better or worse.
For every person who loves Jaguar, its history and its great-looking and handling cars, there will be another for whom the ‘old man’ image can never be shaken. And in the more image-focused world that Jaguar is moving into, that latter point counts more than ever. It’s one thing trying to tempt people out of a BMW 3 Series into a Jaguar XE, quite another to swap their Bentley for a ‘Jaaaag’.
Join the debate
Add your comment
I expect my I-Pace will be my last Jaaaag, the car is teriffic and the (almost 50%) salary-sacrifice EV tax-breaks have made it very afforadable.
But the tax-breaks will be eroded in the next few years and since I don't have the budget for an unsubsidised £76,000 car I certainly will not have the budget for whatever Jaguar are working on.
As a consequence I'll be buying German or Chinese and I think that's a shame.
Let's also remember the talent that Bollore chased out of Jaguar - Julian Thompson.
Gerry McGovern might be the Land Rover designer, but look at the Range Rovers today and they all arc back to the LRX concept, a concept done by Julian Thompson. How many generations of Range Rovers over how many different models all based upon the LRX?
That is the talent that Bollore chased out of Jaguar.
It took a long time for Ian McCallum to turn the design language within Jaguar away from a stuffy old brand that even your granddad would say it was for his granddad! The battles he must have had over the years. Julian Thompson was there with the last round, and every refreshed model has now got a great interior as well as exterier.
Jaguar needed to add a 1-Series / A-Class rival, maybe even a TT. More smaller engined models to more compete 1:1 with the premium rivals, and give a step in to the brand.
That is why the sales number never match up - Because Jaguar doesn't have the spread of products as rivals have. There is where the company needed to expand in to, not hide away hoping to become a rival to Bentley.
There's no money in small cars, especially as the Chinese are now there in every region.
I'm disappointed that jaguar are going to be moving out of my price-range but I can see the problem of trying to compete with BMW & Audi when the volumes are so far apart and I can see the attraction of the low-volume high-end market, particularly as £100k cars are working out fine for Land Rover.
But I think Jaguar are just going to succeed in pricing themselves out of the market.
Gerry McGovern is typically credited with the LRX while Thompson lists it as one of the designs he "worked with Ian Callum" on, so that point seems somewhat unclear.
The plan decimates Jaguar. Alienates their current customers, but will it win the Bentley ones? Probably not.
Jumping from a £30k to £100k? Which of Jaguar customers were holding back spending an extra £70k?
Going from a car company which should be producing hundreds of thousands to cars to one which maybe produces a few thousand? 90%+ of the workforce would have to go!
And that's before you get economies of scale when buying or making simple parts, parts that every manufacturer share between brands but keeps them hidden from view. The simple switches to life the window. Clip in the seatbelt. Ones that get shared from VW / Audi / Skoka / Seat and even Bentley.
Jaguar needs to be a volume manufacturer. It can't go it alone, even Bentley isn't alone.
Everything Thierry Bollore planned to do with Jaguar has to be binned and quickly to save Jaguar. It was always the wrong direction. He is the world's worst automotive CEO.
That is why Autocar should be stating.