Jaguar's internet-breaking Type 00 concept has made its UK public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, just months before the firm reveals the production version of the radical electric super-GT that will start its new era.
The concept was revealed late last year as a statement of intent for the reinvention of Jaguar, which has taken all of its models off sale for a year while it lays the groundwork for a new range of all-electric luxury cars in a far higher price bracket.
The first of these will be revealed at the end of this year as a sleek, four-door GT with up to 986bhp and a design that departs completely from Jaguar's past line-up - both inside and out, as previewed by the Type 00. Due in production in the middle of next year, it will be followed by two more luxury cars, thought to include a larger limousine-style saloon and a Bentley Bentayga-rivalling SUV.
The concept car is a two-door fixed-head coupé, a body type we’re told will not be built. But it has perhaps been artfully chosen because it loosely echoes the layout of the 1961 Jaguar E-Type, the car nearly everyone cites as the leader of a previous great leap forward in Jaguar design.
Company insiders say the concept coupé’s size, proportions and, above all, its design style are all “very close” to the brand’s first next-generation production car: a blocky Porsche Taycan-rivalling super-GT that has been recently pictured testing. That car and its radical styling were first revealed by Autocar back in 2023, and the Type 00 concept shows how accurate our sources were.
This will be the first of three models to be launched, with about a year between them, on the new purpose-designed JEA architecture. That platform will, Jaguar estimates, offer as much as 430 miles of range and the ability to add 200 miles with 15 minutes of charge. This would suggest power being drawn from a battery in excess of 100kWh, but Jaguar has yet to confirm a pack size.
This concept is the product of an exhaustive process that led designers to produce 13 full-size models on the way, and its maturity shows. All were avant-garde, according to design chief Gerry McGovern. “Anything iterative would not have taken us where we wanted to go,” he said.
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Delusional. Even Batman thinks so.
I think a lot of the comments on here about Jaguar “destroying a loved brand” are rather wide of the mark and not based on any kind of reality.
The bottom line is that, for probably the last 10 years, had Jaguar been a standalone brand it would have almost certainly gone bust already. All its cars, I would say without exception, had to use price as a major selling point. I am a proud owner of a Jaguar i-Pace (it was my first Jaguar) and although I paid just over £80k for it, had I specced up an Audi or Mercedes to the spec of my i-Pace I would have to have spent at least another £20k more to get the same level of functionality & features. TBH I feel I got a bit of a bargain.
The bottom line is Jaguar needs to make cars like Range Rovers or Defenders where enough customers are willing to pay over the odds to have one. I’m sure some discounts are offered on Range Rovers & Defenders but they are nowhere near as high as the ones customers & fleets got on Jaguars plus just look at their starting RRP prices.
I think the new pricing strategy is right but to make it work these new cars need to be desirable. I personally love the new design / look – I’m a bit worried about yet another “no buttons” interior but voice recognition is coming on in leaps and bounds so let’s hope natural language commands become the next big thing. So I’ll reserve judgement on that until I’ve had a test drive. However to my mind the exterior of the concept is desirable – very desirable. You only have to see the kerfuffle it caused at Paris fashion week.
Regarding the pricing strategy, the £100-150k price point I think is quite a shrewd move. Bentley and Lamborghini have completely abandoned this price point in the last few years so in reality Jaguar are really only competing with Porsche and upper end Audis, Mercs and BMW’s all of which have hordes of entry level variants which dilute the exclusivity of their brands. Also I would probably describe them as Premium brands rather than Luxury.
So all in all I think Jaguar has got it right on all fronts and if this doesn’t work then maybe their time has come.
As an aside as someone who has a deposit down on the new Bentley EV I have to say unless the production version of the car looks substantially different from the EX15 there will not be a new era Bentley on my driveway any time soon ……….however there very well maybe a new era Jaguar.
"Copy Nothing" obviously doesn't apply to pencil cases.
Very lazy styling that doesn't do anything for me. Seems like the leftists have infiltrated and successfully destroyed another beloved brand.
For something like Jaguar with a certain image and customer base, they should've done something that mixes nostalgia with a modern direction, not gone out of their way to shock and even offend. If Renault / Fiat / Mini / Rolls Royce can hit sales success with retro influences that appeal to the heart, why couldn't Jaguar?
Actually, it also reminds me of the tacky / cheap looking interpretations of modern cars in 80's sci-fi films like Robocop.