Jaguar has been deleting all its Instagram posts (ask your children).
Last week, it discarded a decade’s worth of pictures and videos, like a divorcee deleting pictures of their ex on Facebook (ask your parents).
In their place, it posted three new pictures – intriguingly, all close-up details of its 1988 Le Mans-winning Jaguar XJR-9. They were captioned, simply, ‘Prologue’, ‘Genesis’ and ‘Flash back’.
Details of what’s coming next from Jaguar have been sparse. It feels like a company almost in limbo. It has six models currently on sale, but none is new; and while we’re promised an allelectric future from 2025, underpinned by a new platform called Panthera, the Jaguar XJ electric limo was cancelled late in its development programme and new model roll-outs are thin on the ground. It’s a weird position for a car company to find itself in.
Given the intriguing new pictures, though, I had hopes. Full disclosure: as I type, I’m amending this column, which I had originally written before I knew what was coming.
Jaguar had built carbon-copy continuation runs of famous old cars before, of its C-Type, D-Type, Lightweight E-Type and XKSS (curious that there was no continuation X-Type though, no?), but surely it wasn’t going to build a new 7.0-litre V12 Group C race car that you could barely use?
I mean, that does sound like a laugh, but it would be out of kilter with the future strategy.
And lovely though the Continuation models are, I’ve often said that Jaguar should make new heroes, not reprise old ones. Maybe it finally would, this column originally wondered. With Le Mans only a few days away and given the XJR-9 theme, would it announce a return to endurance racing in the new Hypercar class? Or, considering that it has made some awesome digital sportsracing concepts, maybe it was a real one of those? A limited run?
Alas, no. It’s a limited run, yes, but of an existing model: the Jaguar F-Pace SVR. Probably the best-handling sports SUV in the world, but even in purple with gold wheels, not what I had imagined. Hey ho. Roll on 2025.
As an aside, I see that Jaguar doesn’t follow any other Instagram accounts, which I think is quite a nice position for a company to adopt. It allows a ‘we lead, not follow’, narrative. Although it’s not my favourite social-media policy, which is that of KFC’s Twitter account. It follows just the five Spice Girls and six blokes called Herb.
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.. similarly Bill, thanks for your response. In a way you are saying you are seeing the fate of Holden for Jaguar.
For Jaguar to sell cars for Bentley prices it should make continuation cars on the new panthera platform which should make each car drive as good as any other road car with the latest batteries without being structurally constrained by being a less rigid restomod.
Wow. You're staring at the demise of a motoring icon and all you can say is:
"Hey ho, roll on 2025.'
Seriously, do you honestly think Jaguar is going to be around in 3 years?
Hi Bill, i think for all its issues it is highly unlikely that Jaguar will not be here in 2025. It is part of a much larger automotive group, the remainder of which is highly profitable, backed by a huge and similarly profitable organisation. Yes it is only selling around 100, 000 cars a year but then that is similar to what it sold in 2015/16. It is a car marque with a very long history and valuable reputation, operating in a premium sector so can generate a profit relatively easily at lower volumes, if necessary by cutting to core products. It is really quite unusual for volume car marques to go out of production, i can only think of Rover, Saab and Holden, with Ssanyong perhaps on the cards in the last 25 years, oh maybe Saturn as well. Most of these had had much longer histories of financial difficulty and declining sales before they were phased out.
Many thanks for your thoughtful response. Much appreciated.
Not sure if I share your optimism though.
If it does survive, Jaguar will simply become a Ship of Theseus or Trigger's Broom. A product of over-zealous badge engineering - indistinguishable from the rest of the vanilla motoring landscape.
It's easy to forget now but Jaguar once played a very important part in socio-economics. So many people dragged themselves up by their bootstraps, determined to better themselves because they desired to own a Jaguar. My father was one of them. And there were many, many others like him. No, they weren't always reliable but they remained, for so long, hugely desirable.
But that's all in the past.
And what objects of desire are motivating and inspiring the current young generation?
Judging by the general malaise in society, I would say, not much.
The question is really, does Tata want to focus on fixing Jaguar in the way Geely fixed Volvo? I'm not sure. But I think they would find a buyer who might have the appetite. So they will survive for now.
However if Tata do want to sort out Jaguar they need to focus on competing with Porsche (model for model) rather than BMW, Mercedes and Audi. Two key reasons they are failing:
- Too few dealers (globally) to compete with the German car brands
- Lack of exciting models