Show car Jaguar Type 00: Yes, it is a car

The strikingly long front hood is a clear reminiscence of the E-Type, the legendary sports car that celebrated its premiere at the Geneva Motor Show in 1961 and even counted Enzo Ferrari among its admirers. Otherwise, it takes a bit of imagination to recognize the show car, which was unveiled on Monday evening against a pink backdrop in Miami’s design district, as a Jaguar brand vehicle.

The study, which shows the brand’s identity without ever going into series production, is intended to herald a new era for the British car maker. She also appeared in front of the illustrious premiere audience in two versions – once in “Miami Pink” and once in “London Blue”.

Instead of headlights, the car has two narrow LED slots. The classic radiator grille is replaced by a grid-shaped grid, which can also be found at the rear, on the roof and in the interior and is one of the brand’s new identifying features.

The big cat in the jump – the leaper – has also disappeared from the front view and can only be found on a brushed brass plaque that is attached to the side as a kind of seal of origin. On the front of the vehicle it was replaced by new lettering, which is designed as a relief and is intended to convey balance and depth. The powerful wing doors open to the side and will make it difficult to park the vehicle in a tight parking space.

The interior appears no less avant-garde: the cabin is divided into a driver area and a passenger area by a kind of railing that runs lengthwise through the interior.

But at least: The Jaguar Type 00 (a name that may evoke somewhat unfortunate associations in German, but is pronounced “Type zero zero”) is clearly recognizable as a car, namely a five-meter-long two-seater with an impressive presence and dramatic proportions .

In the meantime, some not entirely unjustified doubts had arisen about this. A colorful teaser campaign with which Jaguar announced its repositioning as a manufacturer of electric cars in the luxury segment caused irritation worldwide because there was initially no visible reference to the automobile in the short clips. Instead, the campaign threw around cloudy imperatives like “copy nothing,” “create exuberant,” or “live vivid.”

Due to the extremely diverse cast, the campaign was perceived as “too woke” by many car enthusiasts. Elon Musk’s mocking query “Do you sell cars?” on X was one of the benevolent comments.

Always an eye-catcher

The brand managers around Managing Director Rawdon Glover were correspondingly nervous before the presentation in Miami, the setting chosen because there are a lot of potential new customers here to visit Miami Art Week.

The invited journalists had to sign several confidentiality agreements and were led through a course on the grounds of the Art Miami art fair in the morning, in which the works of five British artists and creative people were intended to give the transformation of Jaguar a philosophical superstructure.

Perhaps the brand could have avoided the biggest storm of indignation in its almost 90-year history if it had dispensed with the esoteric trappings and put a solid concept at the center of its communication from the start.

The Type 00 is definitely an eye-catcher. It differs significantly from the solid but somewhat staid models of the previous generation and bears the unmistakable signature of Chief Creative Director Gerry McGovern, who has already succeeded in transforming the once robust off-road vehicles of the sister brand Land Rover into monolithic and at the same time strangely distant luxury objects to transform wheels.

“The Leaper always jumps forward, never back,” says McGovern at the presentation in Miami and promises an output of 1000 hp and a range of 700 kilometers. His company is apparently preparing to lose more than 80 percent of its regular customers.

But even if the purists and nostalgics may groan, the show car makes people curious about the series vehicles that will be derived from it. It will start with a four-door Gran Turismo. It will probably take until 2026 before the first new Jaguar goes on sale. The prototypes are already on the streets – covered in camouflage foil, but easily recognizable by the noticeably long front hood.

Participation in the presentation was supported by Jaguar Land Rover. Our standards of transparency and journalistic independence can be found at go2.as/unabhaengigkeit