It’s been around six months since Jaguar, the 89-year-old British premium car brand, decided to arguably torpedo its legacy in search of a new, younger audience. Depending on who you asked, it was either the boldest or stupidest brand decision in years.
Last November, Jaguar’s debut of an advert showing a diverse, gender-fluid set of fashion models but crucially, no car, inspired a wave of vitriol days after the election of Donald Trump to the White House.
The DEI-inspired message didn’t as much fail to land as it did outright clash with an “anti-woke” narrative online, which had reached fever pitch around the time of Trump’s election.
It was, however, a statement of intent for a brand that had grown old with its customers and was staring down a black hole of irrelevance among future generations.
Under the bonnet
Jaguar’s least forgiving critics might have argued the carless rebrand launch signaled last-minute planning. In reality, the launch was the culmination of a four-year design process.
In November 2020, Jaguar tasked its 800-strong design team with developing a winning concept for its ambitious rebrand. The instructions centered around Jaguar’s eventual motto for the new concept car: “Copy nothing,” and focus on building a six-figure car that will catapult the brand out of the premium market and into the luxury one.
The carmaker split its designers into three teams, launching an internal competition between November 2020 and March 2021. Vít Rosický, a creative specialist at Jaguar, helped lead the winning team and focused on the interior of the car.
Sporting a cardigan and thick, circular, black glasses, Rosický perhaps isn’t the archetypal car designer. A student of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, and a fan of the pioneering modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, he talks fondly about Jaguar’s commitment to “reductive design” in its cars and speaks affectionately about the unusual materials present in the Type 00 Concept Car.
Rosický’s musings help explain the car’s design, an unusually long, imposing two-door vehicle in bold “Miami Pink” and “Ultramarine Blue,” a steep departure from its old models. The interior too, is more like the inside of an LA pad than of a car.
“We don’t want to do automotive interior, but rather a beautiful, compelling space with unexpected materials.” Travertine stone and brass are just two of those “unexpected materials” inside the concept car.
“I actually wasn’t nervous,” Rosický told Fortune about the car’s launch, dismissing any fears of a backlash in the build-up to the unveiling. “Because the biggest shift in emotions came from releasing the advert. And I already knew that we have an awesome car that backs the statement that we made.
“Maybe the only nervousness came from a point where I really wanted to show it straight away,” he conceded. “And that’s kind of what I’m feeling now towards the production car. Because just wait till you see that.”
It’s important to note that the Type 00 that debuted at Miami Fashion Week last year is not the same car that will roll off the production lot ready to drive in 2026. For one, the car will have four doors and will cost upwards of $100,000, but the manufacturer is keeping quiet about other changes.
Jaguar’s rebrand
No matter Jaguar’s optimism ahead of the Type 00’s production release next year, the wave of negative media attention must have stung. But with only a concept car so far to show for its efforts, it’s far too early to tell which side of the rebrand argument will be right.
As of May, the group’s launch video has 171 million views on X, and thousands of replies, the most prominent of which are mocking the carmaker. Some, including X owner and EV competitor Musk, even questioned whether “carmaker” was an appropriate description for the company.
“Do you sell cars?” Musk asked Jaguar.
Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing populist Reform UK party, declared: “I predict Jaguar will now go bust. And you know what? They deserve to.”
Jaguar CEO Rawdon Glover was forced to lament what he described as “vile hatred and intolerance” regarding the rebrand. In a biting rebuttal, Glover said Jaguar’s aspiring new audience didn’t match Farage’s demographic.
The fact that all this discourse was fomented without any car to show has been a deeper source of criticism for moderates. Glover, however, suggested at the time that this was the point.
“More people have been talking about Jaguar for the last two weeks than—goodness, for so much longer. Car companies unveil new cars all the time and go completely unnoticed,” Glover told Sky News in December.
Nick White, Jaguar Land Rover’s director for global marketing and online, hasn’t diverged from that company line when he speaks with Fortune six months later.
“There’s a great Oscar Wilde quote, that the only thing that is worse than being talked about, is not being talked about,” said White. “So, my view is that we became the most talked-about brand in the world. I mean, that’s a fantastic place to be when you’re doing change.”
Jaguar has been taking its concept car on a global tour, pit-stopping at each of the Formula E locations, where, alongside its partner TCS, the carmaker has been competing on the race track. The tour has offered a chance to expose the car to an electric-friendly audience, woo prospective wealthy customers, and do market research ahead of the production car’s launch.
During its earnings call in early May, JLR said 32,000 people had “expressed interest” in the Jaguar’s new GT model. The carmaker expects about 20% of its current customers to come with the carmaker on the journey, the rest moving aside owing to price, age, and inevitably, taste.
White, however, has a clear idea of the new demographic Jaguar is targeting to fill the gap.
“We had a transition from traditional car people to people who like luxury and fashion, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do,” White said of the digital data it reviewed during the Miami Fashion Week launch.
We’ve been competing in the mass market for the last 20 years. We’re never going to win that game.”
