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Except you’ve been residing underneath a rock, you’d find out about Jaguar’s controversial choice to grow to be a extra unique, electric-only model, publicised through a garish and broadly criticised advert marketing campaign.
However had the choice not been made to pivot the Indian-owned British auto model from tackling BMW to taking up Bentley, Jaguar would doubtlessly have a revitalised portfolio that will have included a brand new flagship SUV and a brand new sports activities automobile.
Ian Callum, who was the design director of Jaguar till 2019, mentioned at a reside recording of the Autocar My Week in Automobiles podcast that when he left the corporate he was engaged on a brand new SUV to interchange each the F-Tempo and I-Tempo; a brand new sports activities automobile to interchange the F-Kind; and a brand new flagship, Vary Rover-sized J-Tempo SUV.
The following-generation (X391-series) XJ limousine was designed with a single wheelbase size as a substitute of separate short- and long-wheelbase configurations, a transfer BMW additionally made with its newest 7 Sequence and i7.
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It was additionally designed to accommodate a combustion engine, once more very like BMW’s newest flagship – and one thing that will have labored out nicely given the latest decline in demand for high-end EVs.
“I assumed [the next-generation XJ] was fairly good… It was taller. We wished the automobile to be extra stately, which is one thing I all the time fought in opposition to as a result of I all the time felt Jaguar was extra racy than stately, however we produced one thing that was actually very elegant and labored nicely and it was an all-electric automobile,” Mr Callum instructed the podcast.
“Though, it was packaged to take a six-cylinder engine, if want be,” he added, possible that means it could have shared six-cylinder engines with the Vary Rover and Vary Rover Sport, which additionally used its Modular Longitudinal Structure (MLA).
That’s in distinction with Jaguar’s upcoming flagship, based mostly on the Kind 00 idea, which gained’t assist inside combustion engines regardless of having a very lengthy bonnet.
And talking about lengthy bonnets on EVs, Mr Callum had this to say: “I take a look at all these new electrical automobiles and so they appear like they had been designed 20 years in the past. I don’t perceive why they acquired lengthy bonnets on them.”
“Why would you construct an electrical automobile with an extended bonnet on it?” he mused. “It’s not acquired a V12 in there.”
The XJ was set to go electric-only, earlier than demand for high-end electrical automobiles (EVs) stumbled. However lengthy earlier than even then, the sedan was scuttled on the eleventh hour by Thierry Bolloré, the short-lived JLR CEO who was solely within the prime spot from 2020 to 2022.
“Julian [Thomson] took over [from me as design director], then there was all kinds of kerfuffle… There was new administration introduced in at that time, and all these pretty automobiles had been stopped,” Mr Callum instructed the podcast.
The manufacturing model of the Kind 00, so far the one new-era Jaguar to be previewed in idea guise, is now set to be revealed in 2026 following a latest delay.
However Mr Callum conceded Jaguar’s earlier technique of attempting to be the British BMW wasn’t working in its favour.
“That was maybe a part of the issue of Jaguar. We had been racing the German manufacturers, racing in opposition to them too clearly,” he mentioned, citing the XE particularly.
“The XE was a greater automobile than the three Sequence and certainly the Audi [A4] by far, I’m certain someone may disagree but it surely’s a truth, and the fact was the suspension in them and the drivetrain and every thing else was superior. It was superior… but additionally dearer.
“That was Jaguar’s largest failing. It annoyed me. It wasn’t essentially high quality, it wasn’t the facility output, it wasn’t the dealing with, I don’t assume it was the styling. It was the very fact they price an excessive amount of to construct – that was the most important failing.
“We couldn’t compete with the Germans on that entrance. There’s no economic system of scale – 40,000 automobiles versus half 1,000,000.”
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