I’m sure you’re probably sick by now of people being affronted and baffled by Jaguar’s confusing re-branding and new logo. That’s understandable. Things have been very out of the ordinary since yesterday, mostly because everyone has been talking about Jaguar, which is not something that the general population has done for quite some time. It feels a little weird, but you know what? Not so bad! After yesterday, I’m not sure I have a lot of confidence in what Jaguar is doing, but I suspect whatever it is, it won’t be boring. And these first teaser images of what seems to be their all-new EV seem to support that idea.
Say what you will about what Jaguar is doing, as I myself did, but I do think whatever Jaguar does now, it needs to be so big and crazy that everyone has to pay attention. It may fail, sure, but better to go out with a bang than a gasp and a drool, I say.
So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at this rear quarter of a car that Jaguar decided to share with us:
02 Dec 2024 Miami.
Copy nothing.#Jaguar pic.twitter.com/NtLn7j1T7Y— Jaguar (@Jaguar) November 20, 2024
Huh. That’s interesting, isn’t it. I believe we’re looking at the rear of the car, which is, notably, window-less. There’s a massive grille that looks a lot like an office’s HVAC grille, the sort of thing you’d see among the acoustical tile on a ceiling, and next to that what seems to be a rear fender.
It’s a mix of sharp angles and more flowing curves, but almost nothing here feels like what we’ve known of Jaguar’s design language before.
I wanted to make an extrapolated image of the full rear of the car from this shot, so I gave it ago, using that one image they posted and a lot of guessing:
I added that Jaguar leaper there because that grille looked a lot like the sample image of the leaper they released yesterday:
Oh man, can that be right? The proportions are so bonkers! But that’s pretty much what the teaser image is showing? Just for fun, I also made a version with less exaggerated proportions, height-wise, just to see what something lower and sportier could look like:
I think I like that better, but hat doesn’t change the fact that the actual image they showed is much, much taller. Here, I’ll show you again, this time from Jag’s Instagram feed:
View this post on Instagram
Of course, I guessed at the taillights and lower bumper areas. Just for fun, I thought maybe Jaguar would consider doing a special Heritage Edition, where they would use taillights from an old E-Type and a third brake light from a Pep Boys catalog:
Yeah, now that I like! Let’s see it in the likely never-to-exist sleeker version:
I suspect the actual car may be a bit wider than what I’ve shown here, but, really, I have no idea what they’re planning. It looks oddly brutalist and modern, strangely industrial but perhaps a bit sleek, too? Who the hell knows.
I’ll just have to wait for Art Basel to see, like everyone else. This time I need to get there earlier, because someone ate the banana I had set aside for my lunch last time I was there.
Y’know… I don’t mind it. I’ve come to reappraise this re-launch. And yeah, there are elements I don’t like, but it’s succeeded in generating a lot of buzz (and it seems to be pissing off a lot of the right people online). This teaser is also successful. It’s got us asking the question. I’m happy to reserve judgement until the car is fully revealed.
I’ve never seen this level of a fuck-up, congratulations to Jag!
I’m betting the lights are hidden within the grille/horizontal bars, but the teaser looks more like the front of a truck. A competitor to the Tesla Semi ;)?
Oh good, a Jaguar CrossfirE-Type.
But please please please don’t call it the E-Type, JaGUar!
That would also be a copy of something, which would be against their silly branding words the other day, so they can’t do that ,-)
You can clearly see the tire there very close to the DLO so your SUV proportioned mock-ups don’t make sense. Also it will be wider because the roof center line is off the picture. This is something very low slung, looks promising. From the camo mule pics we know there’s a sedan coming so I believe it makes sense to reveal a concept of it as an ultimate expression of their future language and proportions.
No designer wants to do an SUV, if you’re relaunching such a styling led brand you wanna wow with extreme proportions and I hope that’s what it is.
Is it rear engined? I thought they weren’t doing engines anymore
Does this company that replaced Jaguar have actual human designers or are they just using AI? Looks like the latter.
I think it’s cropped so that it does not include the center so the 8 foot high dorsal fin will be more of a surprise when they show the real car.
I don’t know, are you sure that’s not supposed to be the front? Have you seen the front of a Lexus recently?
Fewer windows is good for discretion when getting handjobs from your preference of beautiful person you barely know, maybe they know what they’re doing with this?
This is all just so exhausting. But they wanted attention, and they got it.
It kind of looks like a reverse McLaren F1: two people in the front and one in the back.
Y’all – concepts are…conceptual.
I don’t like the teaser video and its moapy people or threadbare, copied “edginess” but we really did take the bait so hard.
What they show at Art Basel is likely to be the most extreme distillation of their idea for the future, so if it doesn’t have windows, that doesn’t mean the production car won’t have windows.
I honestly feel trolled now. We were supposed to hate their thing and go nuts about it. Lookit them being masters of earned media and organic reach.
Can the at LEAST bring the hood ornament back? 😛
Quite right, a shit kabob needs a handle.
Stick a fork in JaGUar.
So they rebrand their logo to be all circles and then show a car that’s all squares?
Did they forget their meds? I’m not following.
Darth Digestion, Continence, and Congruous got together and said F sublime curves, that Cybertruck has it going on.
Apparently Darth Ept was responsible for the design, and unfortunately Darth Dolence couldn’t be bothered to review it before it was released.
Yeah. Not buying it. Both figuratively and literally.
Rebranding or reblanding? You decide.
Finally we can answer man’s greatest question: What if a Chrysler Crossfire and the an industrial air conditioner conceived in an episode of Miami Vice. By “copy nothing”, they meant “head on down to Lowe’s and copy whatever Kenmore is doing”. Can I microwave my lunch in this? I.M Pei thinks this is a little too much. Is The Future a mistake? Jaguar wants you to pine for the days when transportation was a horse. A six inch layer of shit covering all of London would be an upgrade to staring at this tragedy of Bauhaus movement. Thank God it doesn’t have windows, otherwise people might see you driving it.
I agree. Chrysler Crossfire with a storm drain.
We all float down here
Don’t you want your balloon? Don’t you want it?
Came looking to see if I wasn’t alone in seeing a Crossfire. Mission accomplished.
You know what works reliably, without electricity, for looking out of your vehicle? WINDOWS. No rear window? That’s insane. Cameras don’t give depth the way a mirror does, Also, some of us get motion sickness using rear-view cameras. Do we really need electronics for electronics’ sake? For EVs, manufacturers make weird looking wheels and squeeze every slippery bit of the shape to save power, then add all kinds of silly light-up logos and other useless electronics. Isn’t that counter-productive? Shouldn’t you be looking to maximize power by NOT adding electronics where they aren’t needed?
This is not promising.
Looks like a Ford concept from the late 90s, a GT-90 with all right angles instead of triangles.