Viewpoint: Past Vs. Future - A Tale of Two Jags
- Danny Davies
- Dec 5, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Dec 6, 2024
In the early hours of Monday morning, 4,500 miles away in Miami, Jaguar finally lifted the curtain on their new concept car, the Type 00. After the announcement of their highly controversial rebrand a few weeks ago, and the bizarre accompanying marketing campaign that sat alongside it, the unveiling of the Type 00 is the next part of the puzzle. Well, first and foremost - it confirms that Jaguar is still planning to build cars, which was an absent detail from the last announcement. However, the Type 00 is creating more questions for me than answers - and now, I'm seriously starting to doubt that this new direction was the best one Jaguar could have taken.
(Oh, I'm sure you'll have also noticed the crazy XJS above as well, which appears as though Darth Vader had a hand in the design process - I'll come back to that.)
Before that though, there are a few things I want to get off my chest about the Type 00. Firstly, while the concept's design has been incredibly divisive, I actually like the way it looks for the most part - especially the proportions of the side profile. With such a long-bonneted, sleek and low-slung design, the Type 00 looks like something that the villain in an animated Disney film would drive, and I quite like that. It's a concept car, so why not make it cartoonish, with huge wheels and no rear window and scissor doors? It's going to be tough for Jaguar to translate the cartoonish proportions into real life, with the production version of the Type 00 due next year, but that isn't a new problem within the car world. I just hope for Jaguar's sake that the production car in question can carry at least some of the visual drama of the concept.
Like I said however, I have some issues with the Type 00. First of all, I'm really not a fan of the fact that Jaguar, presumably to bulk up the number of images attached to the press release for the Type 00, have literally posted the exact same set of photos twice, just with two different coloured cars. Now, I've never seen that before, and I find it impossibly lazy; it's almost as though Jaguar are admitting that there aren't enough exciting features to fill a photo gallery. And, that's exactly the point I'm trying to make - being a concept, there isn't anything else about the Type 00 to talk about. There is a rumour that the production car will cost £90,000, but that's meaningless right now, and there are no performance figures, technological innovations or drivetrain specifications for the production car, which is something that could potentially prove to be problematic.
Especially within the current climate that Jaguar have artificially created for themselves, where they're at the forefront of everyone's minds, they needed to unveil something that people would remember for a long time. I'm not sure they have. Yes, the Type 00 is visually striking, especially for an electric car, but is it striking enough? Is the design alone enough to provoke a reaction from future customers, making them want to drop a deposit right there on the spot? For me, only a few days after being unveiled, I already feel like the Type 00 is starting to lose the 'wow factor' that it had when I saw it for the first time. Perhaps this is down to the fact that the combination of design features that build up the proportions of the Type 00 are effective, but also familiar. A long-bonneted, sleek, low-slung GT? If I'm not mistaken, that's been done before - not least by Jaguar themselves, countless times over.
As a result, I'm not sure the Type 00 has made the splash that Jaguar needed it to. The unveiling of the production version is still a year away, with the first deliveries to customers tipped to be another year on top of that. It's going to therefore be two years until anyone receives their new Jaguar, and that's a long time for potential customers to keep the faith in a company going off just the looks of a concept car. And if the potential customers can't keep the faith, then what will everyone else do? I think the whole situation Jaguar have got themselves into is dangerously close to being seen as a gimmick, and will quickly be seen as a stale topic and forgotten about. Then, by the time the new car actually comes out, Jaguar will only be seen as a self-deprecated company that no one really cares about, and this huge risk that JLR are taking will have been for absolutely nothing.
All of this also begs the question: why did Jaguar take the risk of going ahead with such a major, ctrl + alt + delete rebrand of the company, if their first new model is going to be part of the same genre as many of the cars they were famous for building beforehand? Long bonnet. low-slung. Sleek. GT. These are the same properties of some of Jaguar's most legendary cars, from the E-type to the the XJS. Yes, the Type 00, or whatever it'll be called when it's actually a real car, is electric - but for me, that's not enough of a reason to warrant a complete scratch-it-and-go-again rebrand. Surely, it would have been so much easier, and prevented so much upset, if Jaguar had instead embraced their past, and utilised their history of building cars around this formula, as a way of validating the legitimacy and authority of their new product. Instead, what we're left with is an electric GT that is completely detached from the history of the company of which it shares a name, in a climate where nobody wants an electric GT, and where everyone is now against the new direction of said company. Hmm. It might now be dawning on Jaguar that they've got this all wrong.
Previously, I said that I thought the rebrand was clever. But now that I've seen the Type 00, I think that Jaguar have made a mistake, which is such a shame. Anyway, did someone mention XJS? I thought as much, so let's move on to this monster.
If you're also a member of the disappointed camp in regard to the Jaguar rebrand, and believe that the heritage of the company deserves respect, then voilà: this is the car for you. It's called the Supercat, and it looks like a cross between a Group A racer and an Imperial Star Destroyer. Developed by Tom Walkinshaw Racing, or simply TWR, who have a pretty spectacular past when it comes to racing Jags, the fire-breathing (literally) Supercat could be the Jaguar tonic that the automotive world needs right now.
The obvious place to start here is with the Supercat's styling, because...look at it. If you want a piece of automotive design that doesn't lose its 'wow' factor overnight, look no further. Obviously based on an XJS, the Supercat takes the proportions of the car upon which it's based and pushes them to the extreme. The entire body is made of carbon fibre, and gigantic flared arches have been fitted, dramatic spoilers and diffusers have been equipped, and cut-aways and slashes to aid with cooling and airflow pepper the bodywork. I'm a huge fan of the fact that the iconic flying buttresses behind the concave rear window are now actually 'flying' (as they weren't ever before), and I think the Supercat can also claim to have the coolest pair of side-exit exhausts on any car ever, too. Overall, it looks sensational.
In fact, it looks just like one of the crazy ideas that you'd see on your Instagram feed from mastermind designer Khyzyl Saleem...and that's because it is, actually. Saleem was the man responsible for the styling of the Supercat, with a bit of consultancy along the way from the legendary Magnus Walker, and I think it's safe to say that they both absolutely nailed it, with the finished product managing to harmonise an incredibly aggressive design together with the elegance of the original XJS.
The Supercat has a lot more on offer than just the way it looks, though; if you think the styling is special, things get even better once you consider what lies beneath the carbon arches and spoilers. Due to the fact that TWR famously campaigned the Jaguar XJS V12 in various Group A Touring Car championships around the world in the 1980s, with their founder, Tom Walkinshaw, commonly found behind the wheel, it would only be fitting if their modern reinterpretation of the XJS had a properly special engine beneath its blistered bonnet. Well, surprise surprise, it absolutely does - not least because of the fact that Tom's son, Fergus, acted as the head engineer for the Supercat's mechanicals.
Specifically, the Supercat has a 5.6-litre supercharged V12, that is equipped with a dry-sump system. As you can see below, it's an absolute piece of art, with polished manifolds and a carbon air intake system, which is sure to produce an immense induction bark under load. The unit produces 660 bhp and 720lb-ft, which are some tasty numbers - especially when you consider that the Supercat is only available with a 6-speed manual 'box, through a plated LSD. It sounds like a handful - which is probably to be expected from something that looks like it wants to race X-Wings rather than other cars - although it does have multi-stage traction control and ABS systems to hopefully prevent any whoopsies. You can also have carbon ceramic brakes, although you'll have to ask for them.
Like many of the other 'restomod' projects that have been revealed in recent years, TWR have also made sure to pay attention to the interior of the Supercat too, making it a pretty spectacular place to be. Every surface is covered in rich leather and machined aluminium components, and the digital dash has been programmed to recreate the original found in the XJS, which is a cool detail. You also get a Tilton pedal box, seats exclusively developed for the car by Sabelt, an aluminium gear stick that sprouts out of the centre console, and illuminated toggles for the aircon that create an almost retro-futuristic vibe to the inside of the Supercat. Again, much like the exterior, the apparent quality of the Supercat's interior is very impressive.
The Supercat is available to be ordered right now, from £225,000 - which almost seems like a bargain compared to the other restomods on the scene right now. TWR say that the Supercat can be anything from a Super GT to a track car, depending on how potential owners choose to have their cars set up while being built; it remains to be seen if this is really the case, but, at first glance - this feels like a really, really special car, and a fitting tribute to an awesome part of Jaguar's history at a time when such a thing was sorely needed. Well done, TWR. Well done.
It remains a mystery whether or not Jaguar will recover from what has been a tough few weeks. Yes, they've had a lot of publicity, but it might be time to admit that not all publicity is necessarily good publicity, regardless of what some might say. I really hope it works out for them, as it would be heart breaking to see such an important British motoring institution go under because of such a bizarre and stupid reason. Although, if it does - it's nice to know that there are still plenty of passionate people who care about the brand's history, which has well and truly been displayed by the triumph of TWR and the Supercat. I have no doubt that Jaguar's past will continue to live on; I'm just not so sure about their future.
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