What will be the next to go?
Shame. Too expensive for the common buyer, not exotic enough for the deep pocket crowd.
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If only Jaguar had ever come up with an idea for a really cool-looking turbine-electric hybridâŚ
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This may very well be the end of Jaguar as we know it. It was at its best when things were smaller and less complicated. I have not personally tried an F-type, but will look at them as one of the last bargains in the âalmostâ sports car market. Now, if Jaguar folds, and a specialist manufacturer gets the chance to custom-build some cars, that would be a refreshing change. All those exploits into a large range of models was their downfall. Ford overestimated what they could do with the brand.
In my opinion the brand has been slowly dying for the last 15 years.
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Wash ya mouth out Walker!
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Are the announcements of the last year or so intended to wipe the business out for ever?
When you go into the J-LR dealer here, you fully get the feel it is a Land Rover dealer and if you push the salesperson enough they might talk to you about a Jaguar, but only if they arenât too busy. Which is moot because they never seem to have any in stock anyway.
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Ford hasnât owned Jaguar for over a decade. The mistake Ford made was that they thought cars (sedans and sports cars) would remain the majority of the automotive market. So they envisioned Land Rover handling the SUV market and Jaguar the car market.
Obviously Land Rover has prospered, because the automotive market shifted to majority SUV demand. Jaguar was a come-too lately to the SUV field. The struggle Jaguar has always had in the last 40 years is getting enough volume to support the high tech and investment needed to keep produce leading luxury and performance models.
The bid to go all-electric is Jaguarâs last hope, however much the traditionalists loathe it. It canât survive making 50,000 (if that) internal combustion cars a year. It could only do so for the past 15 years by having a sugar daddy (Ford, then the Land Rover side of the Tatra business) floating it.
The real death-blows, if thatâs what happens to Jaguar, is their total inability to get their quality control in line in the past decade. I thought about an electric vehicle, and of course my first look was at the I-Pace.
But reading about the defects and problems with it ended that inquiry very quickly, and I havenât considered any Jaguar since. The XF and F-type are little better. I donât want to buy a $70,000+ USD lottery ticket, and forget a used one, whose defects are likely unfixable by a home amateur mechanic. (thereâs some stuff on my 2005 S-type R which I canât fix like the failed phone Bluetooth function.)
Dave
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A well considered assessment IMO. Personally, I wonât consider any Jaguar post X308. FWIW.
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They really are going all in on the electric cars. If they donât knock it out of the park, I honestly donât know how Jaguar can survive. Considering how they have left the current models to wither, they donât seem to have any kind of a backup plan.
Maybe Iâm just being nostalgic about Jaguars. Once cars convert to electric, will it even make sense to offer different models or even different brands of cars? Maybe they will all discard any differentiation between them and become the same boring car. I doubt most people would really care.
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Sure it will: just like the vast majority of American cars from the 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond, were all sort of the same under their skin, they catered to different styles and different features. EVs wonât be any different.
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Just like there are many different varieties of electric drills there will be many different varieties of electric cars. Large, small, fast, torquey, hammer, impact, ugly, pretty, lights, range, price etc.
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I see that Bollore has resigned. It would be interesting to know the details. I wonder if there will be a change of direction. In my view, he didnât understand Jaguar. Who ever takes over would do well to study carefully John Eganâs book âSaving Jaguar.â
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I hope it can be savedâŚ
I really enjoyed Eganâs book, but itâs a different situation entirely. Jaguar made incredible cars back then, but they were terrible. He fixed it, and people bought them. Today Jaguars are bland anonymous nothing⌠Bollore should never have axed the new XJ. Jaguar has never been this down market. Now they axed the F-type⌠Did you see the new Genesis X convertible? Itâs an XJS for 2030 along the side.
Of course times and the problems have changed since Eganâs era. Some things remain the same such as what a Jaguar should be. According to Egan, it should be the best luxury performance car in the world, just aim for that, not numbers sold or highest tech or being better than Mercedes or BMW or whatever. Aim for that and all it entails and success follows.
Even the advertising was so much better than the minimal rubbish of recent years. Remember âthe legend growsâ and âthe pursuit of perfectionâ. The slogans told the story and helped to sell series 3 XJ, which, though possibly the best luxury performance car, was a bit of an antique. There was also a very well targeted racing programme.
Thank goodness - hopefully they nuke the crack legal team as well and rebuild their destroyed customer base.
In my view, climbing out of the hole was straightforward; you offer a contender to the 911, with a damn manual transmission, a gorgeous hybrid sedan and pillar less coupe, and a fully electric supercar built in extremely low quantities and or plead to Tata for a race budget - F1?!?!. Ditch the F-Pace immediately as the customer base should be directed only to LR for the SUV segment.
Drop the poorly contrived continuation nonsense and boost factory restoration exposure through the Heritage arm.
Piece o cake!
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Jeff, if I were you, I would immediately as in today, put in your bona fides to Jaguar and, voilĂ !
Thereâs your passive income⌠
You do have to wonder how the decision was made to pick Bollore. Horrible reputation at his last gig of which he was escorted out the door of, itâs the way of business world though, unfortunately.
His âMOâ reminds me of a corporate attorney we had on staff, that every time you asked his opinion, he answered âIâll have to call an attorney and get back to youâ. Nothing like (non) essential dead weight to tilt the âol G&A spending scale.
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