A jaw-dropping new electric Jaguar with ‘wow’ factor will spearhead the renaissance of the luxury sports brand and its off-road siblings as part of a £15billion investment, bosses said today.
The dramatic four door GT grand tourer with a range of 430 miles will ‘look like nothing else’ and be the first of three all-electric Jaguars launched from 2024 with first customer deliveries from 2025, from which time it will be a totally electric ‘reborn’ brand.
But it won’t come cheap, with six-figure prices set to start from £100,000, and will be sold in special boutique salons and online.
Jaguar’s first new model as part of its transition to become an all-electric luxury car brand will be a £100,000 dramatic four-door grand tourer, the British marque said today
Parent group JLR is investing £1billion to go back to the drawing board and revive Jaguar as a modern 21st century electric brand that will ‘shock’ and make waves.
This part of £15billion investment – at the rate of £3billion a year over five years – it is investing in the whole business as the second stage of its ‘reimagination’ strategy.
Announcing the plan as part of a wider revival and transformation of JLR, the Midlands based company pledged: ‘This cat is going to purr.’
The new electric Jaguar will be built at its vehicle plant in Solihull near Birmingham as a part of a wider shake up of production and factories.
Parent group JLR is investing £1bn to go back to the drawing board and revive Jaguar as a modern 21st century electric brand that will ‘shock’ and make waves as part of a wider £15bn investment over 5 years
Bosses revealed this teaser image for the forthcoming electric GT car, which gives away pretty much nothing. It will be one of three new models brought to market to spearhead the brand’s transition to electric-only models
Prototype models will commence testing on public roads later this year, though the vehicles will be heavily camouflaged as to not reveal its design.
The comments came in a global briefing carried out at JLR’s design and engineering HQ Gaydon Warwickshire, which the firm said stood proudly at the heart of ‘Middle England’ but exported to the world.
It comes after a troubled period for the upmarket British car maker owned by India’s giant Tata industrial conglomerate.
Bosses apologised for a long period of silence on the matter but said they had been working quietly but busily behind the scenes and now had something concrete to shout about.
It also follows the surprise departure in November last year of previous CEO Thierry Bollore after just two years in the top job.
JLR’s new chief executive is Adrian Mardell, who today proclaimed to have worked for the British car maker for 32 years, five months and 14 days, said: ‘This is also about the renaissance of Jaguar. It’s personal. It’s unfinished business.
‘Jaguar is going to be reborn. Our focus is now on delivery and execution.’
The move to ‘pause’ Jaguar for the last two years while attempting to reinvent it, was a brave – but necessary – move, he said.
Announcing the plan for a dramatic battery-powered GT cruiser as part of a wider revival and transformation of JLR, the Midlands based company pledged: ‘This cat is going to purr’
Commenting on its new EV, Jaguar Land Rover’s design chief, professor Gerry McGovern, said: ‘It will knock the eyes out of your head when you see it.
‘The design brief was to create a car that will be jaw-dropping and make people say “Wow”.’
And three cars chosen to spearhead Jaguar’s renaissance have been whittled down from a total of 18 physical prototypes created by six rival design teams in an internal competition that had shades of the BBC’s hit show, The Apprentice.
Professor Jerry McGovern, JLR’s design boss
But in the end McGovern admitted: ‘We knew instantly which were the three – and it was unanimous.’
He said the futuristic and modernist Jaguars would ‘shock’ but harked back spiritually to the sort of reaction created when the legendary Jaguar E-Type was launched in the 1960s and the XJS saloon in the 1970s.
‘The new Jaguar will be fearless and progressive, exuberant, modern and unique. We should be proud of its Britishness,’ McGovern added.
He said Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons had once said that Jaguars should be ‘a copy of nothing’ in their uniqueness, and this had been his guiding principle.
‘When the E-Type was seen for the first time it looked like it had dropped out of space,’ McGovern went on.
‘The XJs caused a stir when it was launched. We’ll do the same with our new Jaguars.
‘Believe me, this brand will inspire like no other,’ he concluded.
