CHALLENGING THE IDEA OF WHAT JAGUAR CAN BE

“No, I didn’t…” says Jaguar design boss Ian Callum when asked if he ever thought Jaguar would be in a position where it could soon be selling more SUVS than saloons. Like the F-pace before it, the E-pace challenges the idea of what a Jaguar can be – the upcoming electric I-pace even more so. But they all still feel right, something Callum describes as coming about “from the transition from sports car to SUV”.

To that end, he points to the role of the F-type in giving Jaguar the licence to go out and make SUVS. As long as it has a sports car in its range, it can claim to credibly be a sports car company, no matter how many SUVS it sells. Much like Porsche with the Cayenne and Macan, it’s the 911 that gives those cars the credibility and the licence for Porsche to go out and make them.

Callum says: “When I first came to Jaguar, which was before even the first Porsche Cayenne, I was asked if I would do an SUV. I said no, it was not in our DNA, as it wasn’t in the purity of being a sports car company.

“I said we needed to fix the ground rules first,” he adds, saying that sports saloons and sports cars needed to be made before an SUV. Once the likes of the XE, XF, XJ and, crucially, F-type then appeared, “it felt very natural to do it after”.

He continues: “I didn’t then take much persuading. It was about what other people wanted as well – in clinics, people said they’d buy it. The F-pace is now the most successful new Jaguar ever.”

What would founder Sir William Lyons make of the E-pace, then? “William Lyons would approve, totally,” says Callum. “He’d have got to it, and before us. He said the car and lorry are the closest thing to creating something that lives. Not many people know that.”