The Neo-Brutalist Jaguar Type 00 Was Out In Public And I Feel Strange Because I Almost Like It

Back in November of last year, Jaguar seemed determined to prove that all they wanted to do was set everything on fire and then hire a bunch of ex-theater-kid dorks to dance on the ashes in 2017-era Fashion Week getups. They did a dramatic rebrand and showed a new logo that looked like they had taken all of Jaguar’s storied history and given it a nice soaking in urine. When they showed their new concept car that promised to be the new direction of Jaguar design, the Type 00, our captive designer Adrian Clarke wrote a piece titled Why Does The New Jaguar Type 00 Look Like A Concrete Shithouse?

As you may have inferred, nobody was really thrilled with the new direction of Jaguar design.

Now, though, the Type 00 concept has been seen out in public, on real public roads, in a real city, and I think I may somehow be warming up to this strange thing?

Here, you can see it in Paris, gliding around and looking like it somehow doesn’t exactly fully exist as part of our reality:

The Jaguar eventually came to a stop by the curb and disgorged strangely elven-looking actor Barry Keoghan:

 

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One interesting detail that was revealed was how the trunk is accessed on the car:

Now, I’m still not down with the no-rear-window look, because that’s just stupid and that retractable panel absolutely could have been a rear window, but it’s good to see how the cargo area is being treated here. It’s not exactly cavernous, but I’m still hoping at least some portion of that vast, runway-sized hood may be hiding a nice coffin-shaped frunk under there.

It may be the striking blue color, it may be the cartoonishly-exaggerated proportions, but whatever it is, this thing does have presence. It feels otherworldly and strange, I think in large part due to the minimal surface detailing and low-polygon, gouraud-shaded look of the thing, and as it slinks down a street it absolutely commands attention.

I think that’s kind of the whole point of this car, which means it’s doing its job successfully, which is all one can expect of a car. Of course, this is a concept car, still full of all sorts of concept car frippery and possessing a gleeful ignorance of practicality and regulations, so it can pull this sort of thing off with ease.

But it does give me some hope; hope that Jaguar will continue to make cars that turn heads, cars that when you encounter them, it feels like something special has happened in your day. I think the original E-Type had that quality, albeit in a more conventionally lovely way, but I do think some production version of the Type 00 may be able to pull it off as well.

This could end up being something akin to the Tesla Cybertruck, design-wise, in the sense that while I may not particularly like it specifically, I like that it exists, and I think the overall car-space is better for having such outliers in it.

This thing is out there in the world, but doesn’t quite feel like a part of it. It’s aggressively artificial, contrived, the polar opposite of anything natural, something that kicks the idea of harmony down to the ground and then gives it a silver lamé jumpsuit and a bottle of vodka-spiked blue Gatorade by way of apology. The apology is insincere, too.

But that’s what I like about this thing. It’s unashamed and a little ugly and brash and showy and striking and it turns mundanity into an event. So good for you, Jaguar. Maybe you’re actually going to fight your way out of that pit of irrelevance with enough loud madness. That is, if you can pull off a production version that somehow keeps all of these elements, which will be no small feat.

Despite my better judgement, I think I’ll be rooting for you.