Jaguar’s Art Basel event is starting! Let me see if I can live blog any of this! Here’s the livestream!
Here’s what we know: 1000 hp, 430 miles of range! Those are fantastic made-up numbers! The colors are “London Blue” and “Miami Pink!” The most powerful Jaguars ever, we’re told, and it seems to check out.
According to Jaguar, here’s more details:
“The engineers target a maximum driving range of 430 miles (692 kilometers) in the EPA cycle. In the more optimistic WLTP, the gran tourer will do 478 miles (770 kilometers) before running out of juice. Thanks to fast-charging capabilities, the EV will add 200 miles (321 kilometers) of range after juicing up the battery for only 15 minutes.”
Ah! I can finally embed the video:
We finally get a look at the taillights, too:
Two taillights, but oriented one atop the other, as opposed to side by side!
Jaguar’s Chief Creative Officer, Gerry McGovern, here is talking about how Jaguar doesn’t conform, and they’re uncompormisig and creative, pointing out the “exuberant proportions.” It’s all pretty much expected PR sort of talk, mostly meaningless.
They note also the “strikethrough” motif at the rear, which he claims emphasizes the haunches. Doesn’t say anything about it looking like a window unit air conditioner.
Unsurprisingly, comments are turned off.
The presentation was pretty short on details, and we still don’t know how this thing is packaged or what is under that long, dramatic hood. We were told that while these are concepts, Gerry there doesn’t like to do concepts unless they have a chance of becoming real, so I think we can expect to see Jaguars that look like this in the future, but when that future is no one hinted. 2026? 2027? Who knows.
The cars definitely have presence on that stage, and that’s certainly good to see. Especially when you consider what they’ve been making recently:
I mean, the Type 00 certainly has plenty of issues, but it’s not going to get lost in an empty Target parking lot like that I-Pace up there.
I think overall we have to give Jag credit for managing to get everyone interested in them again, which was certainly not the case a month ago. Sure, this whole campaign has felt desperate and derivative and laden with pretentious bullshit and some questionable design choices, but the concepts they’re showing are hard to ignore, and I feel like whatever comes out of the other side of this will be, if nothing else, non-boring. And that means a lot.
I’m including this image of Gerry because it’s the exact expression your dad makes right at that moment where he’s had enough. You were riding the line, and then you did or said that one last thing, and that’s fucking it, he is not having it, not anymore.
You’re in trouble now.
Oh, looks like we have a few more answers, if we dig around. Here’s a bunch more interior images, like this one, showing that the instrument and infotainment screens pop up as needed, because that’s the kind of shit concept cars do:
If you were wondering how cavern-like the rear feels without a rear window, here’s a shot of that:
Yeah, it’s like a cave. Are those seats back there, or luggage platforms? Or folded seats? Why couldn’t they have piut a window back there? And have people been clamoring for a huge copper pipe to bisect the interior of their cars? Did I miss that? Do people want that?
Look at this shit, though: that waterfall-like lump there is travertine. You know, like marble. Comfy, warm marble. Perfect for a car interior, right? What the fuck is this, the Getty Center? No, it’s a car, dummies. Which means maybe limit how many fucking rocks you build into the inside. Heavy, uncomfortable, brittle, does travertine have any qualities you want in a car? Being new and original isn’t a license to be stupid, Jaguar. Come on!
That’s some serious concept-car horseshit right there.
Oh, we do finally find out what these things are. They’re cases for “totems,” little physical tchotchkes that you can put into the big brass tube that’s getting in your way inside to change the car’s “interior moods?”
There. If you were wondering what kind of interface was worse than touchscreens or buttons or anything else, I think we found it: shoving little losables into obtrusive compartments.
Okay, I regret digging deeper. I liked when I just appreciated the dramatic proportions. These get stupider on the inside. Let’s just hope it’s all concept car exuberance and let it lie.
I’m done. Good work, Jag, I guess.
“Chief Creative Officer”
Frank Costanza: “What the hell does that even mean?”
This thing is a complete joke…that dash is horrible and those “features” in the end made me want to puke
A friend of mine called the pink one “Barbie’s Batmobile”.
It does have the horrible vision and looks of the modern Batmobiles.
I hope you were appropriately dressed for the event. Perhaps something in a ruched chartreuse sphere with a lemon ruff around the neck.
I recall going to the Pittsburgh Auto Show as a kid/teen(’80s ’90s). All the mass market manufacturers let you sit in and play with the cars EXCEPT Jaguar. They made themselves out to be more exclusive than they really were, resting on an old heritage.
At the Toronto Auto show, I remember a Jag sales bro telling an old man that the F-Pace was “not a regular SUV, It’s a sports car”. Yeah…
I’m sorry, that is the battery eject button like a cassette on an ’80s boom box.
There is a need to reinvent and build interest. I get it. I know the new AI reality is making us rethink everything. I see promise here, but am put off at the same time.
Release THE BISHOP!!
So painting them BRG was a step too far backwards?
For rich flashy people to buy it, they have to think that people that can’t afford it really want it.
I probably can’t afford it, but I definitely don’t want it.
At least I’m not disappointed that it’s too expensive for me. Given all the money in the world, I think I could find a better way to spend it.
Am I the only one singing “Let it die” instead of “let it grow”? Jaguar had a… well they had a run.
Jaguar has entered the “zombie brand” era. Like Bell & Howell or Nakamichi.
It would be perfect for the next Dick Tracy movie.
Electrical banana, is gonna be a sudden craze.
Electrical banana, is bound to be the very next phase.
Kinda reminds you of the New Coke thing. Problem is that when a major redesign proves to be a disaster, it’s a lot harder to roll it back with cars than with soft drinks. I guess we can hope that they scrap this concept before it goes any further and get back to putting out cars with some semblance of class and elegance. Maybe April 1, we find that everything from the new logo to this thing was all a big joke?
Nobody bought the classy elegant cars. This is literally their last chance effort to continue existing. They are shooting for the gap between BMW / Audi / MB and Bentley and using design to differentiate. The fact that most people on this site don’t like it is a positive for them. The target audience has money and wants to make a statement, they do not care about VW taillights and Jeep rust content.
Yeah, I guess that’s a potential strategy, but that’s a very limited audience. And the thing is just so ugly. It’s a concept, so maybe the worst aspects (front and rear) will get cleaned up once it’s ready for the real world. If I were the kind of person who traded in my 150K+ car each year so that I could have something new and luxurious, I’d easily take an Audi or an MB over this, despite its “cutting edge” looks and the chance to make a statement.