The Type 01 is finally here, and I want to get one thing out of the way first. The specs are great. 757kW from three motors, 0 to 100km/h in 3.2 seconds, 720km of range, a cabin full of tech. I have no doubt it is quick and I have no doubt it is comfortable.
None of that changes my mind. I have seen enough to know this is not a Jaguar.
The Body Says Something Else
I grew up with a Series 1 XJ6 in the driveway. I know what a Jaguar looks like from fifty metres away, before you can see the badge. Low, lean, a bit of menace in the haunches.
I looked at this car and could not find any of it. A slab of a nose, a high wall of a body, no rear window. Take the badge off and you could tell me it came from any new EV startup and I would believe you.
Chasing Rolls-Royce Is the Wrong Fight
£130,000 in the UK. Around $300,000 here in Australia. Jaguar says it is aiming at the space just under Bentley and Rolls-Royce. That is a brand trying to leapfrog its way into a class it has never owned.
Rolls-Royce and Bentley earned that money over a century of never letting the standard slip. Jaguar is asking for that kind of trust while the last thing most people remember is a warning light on the dash.
Why Keep the Name?
This is the part I genuinely do not understand. If you are going to throw out everything, why keep the name at all?
Call it something new and you start clean. Instead, the Type 01 inherits every bit of the baggage. The British Leyland years, the electrical gremlins, the resale values, the nervous ownership stories. It carries all of the stigma and none of the legacy.
They Already Killed the Good Part
The legacy was the only thing worth keeping. The E-Type, the XJ, the feeling of a well-dressed person pulling up somewhere special. They told us in the rebrand that all of it was going. So what exactly does the name bring to this car, apart from the bad memories?
You Can Buy This Car Already
Right now there is a long list of luxury electric cars coming out of China. Big power, big screens, big promises, and no history behind any of it.
That is exactly what the Type 01 is. A lot of money spent to build one more of them, with a famous badge on the nose. If that is what you want, you have plenty of choice, and most of it costs less.
The Dirt on the Grave
I said in the last part of this series that I was watching. Well, I have watched. Jaguar as I knew it is dead, and this car pushed the dirt over the grave.
I Might Be Wrong
I will say it, I might be wrong. Outrage gets attention and attention can sell cars. There are plenty of buyers who will fall for the marketing, and the people loudest about hating it may end up being the best advertising it gets.
But what a way to sell a car. Off the back of people hating it.
I still would not swap an old XJ6 for one. What do you think, is the Type 01 a Jaguar or not?
image via By By User3204 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=167078336
