THE CURIOUS CASE OF A DISAPPEARING JAGUAR
Let’s start with ‘be careful about what you wish for’!
Jaguar established a deeply engrained image – now called ’brand’ – based on beautiful cars, discussions about the future as WW2 bombs fell, five wins at Le Mans and fabled trips at speeds of 150 mph or more across Europe. This was achieved for half a century with enough engineers to run a small part of Mercedes-Benz passenger car experimental workshops, on a budget not far off the same companies’ works canteen.
Blessed with not one but a string of highly talented designers, Jaguar strode onwards. The acquisition by Ford allowed it to join Lincoln, Aston Martin, and Volvo in what became the Premier Automotive Group (‘PAG’). The process enabled Jaguar to revolutionise quality, to engineer things in ways previously only dreamt of and to win at Le Mans, with TWR, on two more occasions.
The long game
PAG laid at huge expense many of the tools the next owner, Tata Motors (part of Tata Group), would benefit from. Ford lost so much money at Jaguar it exceeded at the time the GDP of some African states. Two defining Jaguar models from the PAG era – X-Type based on a Ford platform and S-Type sharing even more with the Lincoln Town Car – should have enabled Jaguar to become what it really wanted to be. An equal of Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz.
The X-Type lost money in every year, in every possible way but the production quality from Halewood was great. The S-Type was commercially more successful and judged by customers to be a proper Jaguar, even though it was a re-worked Ford. Both cars suffered from retro styling which had a short shelf life. The Jaguar XJS legendary build issues were resolved with the re-tooled, re-engineered XK8 X100 – and XJ X350 was the first Jaguar aluminium intensive body production programme.
The world, meanwhile, wanted luxury SUVs – something Jaguar had not done before.
Second generation product under PAG saw the XK8 aluminium intensive body programme, again at a planned low build rate. The S-Type was replaced with XF X200, where engineering swerved from all-steel, steel with aluminium bits to all aluminium before settling on a steel shell with aluminium closures. Meanwhile, XJ X350 went from retro ‘geezer’ styling to X351 – a design that looks even fresher now than when first launched.
Throughout Land Rover decided to take command of last or near-last place in JP Power quality surveys, while Jaguar frequented near the top of the listings. Yet this did not translate to Jaguar sales success.
The revival, again
Tata Motors executed several moves after the purchase from Ford, aimed at eliminating Ford sourced parts to reduce costs, especially for the body due to licence fees per panel. The major investments continued:
- Jaguar XE X760, aluminium intensive body, new Ingenium engines built at the i54 JLR plant – in effect new from the ground up. Built at Solihull for one year and then Castle Bromwich.
- Jaguar XF X250, in effect a longer wheelbase XE, also built at Castle Bromwich.
- Jaguar XJ X352, was planned to become a BEV for 2020, but was axed a few months before production could start.
- Jaguar F-Type X152, based on the last XK8 X150 with shorter overall length and mix of Ingenium as well as Ford/JLR engines. Annual volume capped at 7 000 units.
- Jaguar E-Pace, using Range Rover Evoque L538 platform, built in Austria rather than Halewood.
- Jaguar F-Pace X761, aluminium intensive shell, based on the X760/X250 platform, sister to Range Rover Velar, built in Solihull.
- Jaguar I-Pace, the one and only JLR pure electric vehicle, built in Austria.
What could possibly go wrong? Land Rover individual model ranges out-sold the entire Jaguar line-up.
The final solution?
JLR build larger vehicles which required rather more power than mere cars to move, and so a ‘cunning plan’ was revealed to excited investors in 2023:
- Move Jaguar to an electric only brand (which had been planned since 2019 or so).
- Re-equip Castle Bromwich as a BEV plant, which then required removal of XE, XF and F-type.
- The contracts with Magna Steyr in Austria were coming to an end, so remove E- and I-Pace.
To keep customers happy, all plants would continue to build at normal – for 2023 – rates until May 2024, with the stock ‘banked’.
The first of the new models would be revealed at the end of 2024 to be delivered during 2025 and then further models arrive every 12 months or so-ish. Not exactly a flood.
That is how one takes a seven-model range down to a single model, and move the entire brand away from one of its most famous features – internal combustion engines. JLR had to mitigate carbon footprint taxation, which in Europe is done by buying credits from Tesla. There is a significant incentive to build BEVs for JLR, to enable more profitable internal combustion engine cars to be sold. And yes, there will be pure electric Land Rover/ Range Rover models, but in addition to rather than instead of internal combustion engine power.
It still does not answer the painfully obvious. In 2019 it was very clear Plan B had to be available, with internal combustion engines, electrified powertrains for Jaguar, as well as Land Rover/Range Rover.
Will this ‘cunning plan’ be worthy of Baldrick, or a triumph? We all sincerely hope it will be the latter.
It still does not answer the painfully obvious. In 2019 it was obvious Plan B had to be available, with internal combustion engine electrified powertrains for Jaguar as well as Land Rover / Range Rover.
Will this ‘cunning plan’ be worthy of Baldrick, or a triumph? We all hope it will be the latter.
Story by Andrew Marsh
