Jaguar pounces
So long F-Type — there’ll soon be an electric big cat on the prowl
The new Jaguar will be a jaw-dropping electric performance car to spearhead the renaissance of the British luxury sports brand and its off-road siblings as part of a wider £15 billion investment, say bosses.
The dramatic, four-door GT tourer with a range of 430 miles will look ‘like nothing else’ and is the first of three all-electric Jaguars to be launched, starting next year. First customer deliveries will arrive in 2025, from which time Jaguar will be a totally electric ‘reborn’ marque.
But the car won’t come cheap, with prices set to start from £100,000, and it will be sold in special boutique salons and online.
ON THE UP
JaGuar Land rover (JLr) is investing £1 billion to revive Jaguar as a 21st-century electric brand.
That is part of the £15 billion investment — £3 billion a year over five years — it is piling into the whole business as the second stage of its ‘reimagine’ strategy. The plan includes saying farewell to Jaguar’s previous sports car, the F-Type, which launched in 2013.
I was inside JLr’s design and engineering headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire, to be briefed by senior executives on the strategy which is part of a wider revival and transformation of the Midlands-based company.
The new electric Jaguar will be built at the JLr factory in Solihull near Birmingham as a part of a shake-up of production and factories. It comes after a troubled period for the upmarket British car-maker, which is owned by India’s giant Tata industrial conglomerate.
This included scrapping close to production its flagship electric XJ limousine and the surprise departure in November last year of previous CeO Thierry Bollore after just two years in the top job.
JLr’s interim chief executive adrian Mardell said of the reimagining of the company’s business: ‘This is also about the renaissance of Jaguar. It’s personal. It’s unfinished business.’
he admitted that in the past reliability had ‘not been good enough’ but insisted: ‘We’re making progress.’
EASY ON THE EYE
JaGuar Land rover’s design chief Professor Gerry McGovern said of the new electric car, which will be testing on public roads in heavy disguise later this year: ‘It will knock the eyes out of your head when you see it.’
The final three cars were chosen ‘unanimously’ from a total of 18 physical prototypes created by six rival design teams in an internal competition that had shades of TV’s The apprentice.
he said the futuristic new Jaguars would ‘shock’ but harked back spiritually to the sort of reaction created when the legendary Jaguar e-Type was launched in the 1960s and the XJS saloon in the 1970s. he reminded me that Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons had once said that the cars should be ‘a copy of nothing’ in their uniqueness, and this had been his guiding principle: ‘When the e-Type was seen for the first time it looked like it had dropped out of space.’
however, as part of the JLr shake-up, the original Land rover name for the company’s off-roaders since the firm’s inception in 1948 is being controversially sidelined.
It will only be used as an overarching ‘Trust Mark’, appearing small on vehicle grilles and in a secondary role inside showrooms.
Instead, the new car brand names for its 4x4 range will be stand alone: range rover, Defender and Discovery, plus Jaguar.