You might question why a British car brand chose New York to unveil its newest model, and you might also ask me why I travelled 3,470 miles to see a car that’s made 90 miles up the M40 from where I live.
Launching the Jaguar Type 01 in the Big Apple was about making a statement in one of the car’s biggest markets. At the party, the Type 01 was the star of the show, for sure. But Florence Pugh, David Gandy, basketball star Karl-Anthony Towns and a load of pouting people who I had as much clue about who they were as they did me, all turned out to look at one of the most talked about cars of the decade.
Me? As The Independent’s Electric Vehicles Editor and someone who has covered the motoring industry for 30 years, I must go where the stories are and being in New York allowed me to get up close and personal with the car and the people who made it.
It also gave me an opportunity to talk to those people car makers sometimes would rather I didn’t chat with: their dealers. In New York I spoke with a couple of very big retailers who will be crucial to the new Jaguar’s success in the US (another good reason for choosing New York as a venue) and they were as excited as school kids looking at the new car.
Let’s get one thing straight: to my eyes, the new Jaguar Type 01 is not a beauty. Striking, yes. Beautiful, no. It’s an intriguing design and one you just can’t help staring at and, despite its 5.2-meter length, it’s more of a 2+2 than limousine with the rear seats surprisingly snug and getting in there too much of a challenge for some. As for the minimalist interior, yes, that’s more beautiful, but please, give me some buttons!
For Jaguar to survive it had to change; it was a case of go big or go home. Every time Jaguar has gone toe-to-toe with rivals like BMW and Mercedes in the past it has lost. So, this could well be the last throw of the dice for Jaguar, at least under its current owners Tata.
The Type 01 may be described as a GT, but this will be Jaguar’s sports car - just like the E-Type was back in the 1960s. In fact, the Type 01 has more in common with the E-Type than Jaguar might admit: the long nose, short rear, 2+2 cabin – and its spirit. Like the Type 01, the E-Type was a Jaguar that dared to be different and didn’t try to take on its rivals.
However, dig deep into the story around the new car and there is some real beauty in both the engineering and the sheer bloody-mindedness of sticking to a plan, refusing to compromise and delivering something that is refreshingly different.
I’d go as far as saying that no other car company on the planet could do what Jaguar has done. And that’s confirmed by two JLR board members who should know: ex-Volkswagen and Audi man Thomas Müller who’s now Chief Technical Officer at JLR and Chief Growth Officer Lennard Hoornik, who used to work for Dyson – a company that was, at one time, developing its own electric car.
“The German are more technical,” Müller told me. “We are more design and brand led and accepting that our job is to make that work. You've seen a couple of examples in that, something that other companies would give up before. They would say: ‘No, you need to compromise’. The mindset in the companies like ours is that we don't compromise. We go, we go, we go. We take a bit longer, but we're going to find the right solution.”
One of the examples Müller was talking about was what Jaguar calls ‘The Impossible Panel’ at the rear of the car – I never thought I’d get that excited about a single piece of pressed metal, but that is thing of beauty. It would have been easy for the engineers to just tell the design team that it couldn’t be done, but Jaguar gave them time – and they even brought a former colleague out of retirement to help – and eventually they made it work.
There’s also a clever solution to putting battery cells ahead of the driver, giving range and performance benefits, and the ingenuity to find a solution to make that a safe solution.
One other thing that fills me with hope is that the car’s dynamics have been tuned by an unassuming bloke called Matt Becker - one of the nicest and most-talented people in the whole car business. He’s so unbothered by the limelight that he turned up amongst all the razzle dazzle in New York in what can only be described as a pair of slacks and a cardigan! Even I had put a suit on.
Fair play to him because those that know, know that Becker has been responsible for the ride and handling of some of the best British cars of a generation, firstly at Lotus, then at Aston Martin and now at JLR.
I’ve ridden with him in the Type 01 and he’s worked his magic again in defining a new ‘Jaguar feel’ and implementing it. It’s blend of comfort and dynamism for what is a big, heavy car is astonishing.
What we must also remember is that the Type 01 is Jaguar’s Trojan Horse. It’s what comes next - rumoured to be an SUV and a crossover - that will have to sell. The Type 01’s job is different and if Jaguar manages to shift a few thousand each year, I suspect it would be deemed a success.
However, what has stuck with me most about following the Type 01 project is seeing the dogged determination to make this work for Jaguar, the Jaguar family and - most importantly - a new breed of Jaguar buyer.
The mixture of relief and delight I witnessed once the car had finally made its brilliantly choreographed debut was something I’d not seen at a car launch before. Instead of the usual confident congratulatory handshakes and a bit of back slapping, there were hugs, high-fives and plenty of tears. This car means so much to the people who’ve made it, and that’s good news for the people who’ll buy it. The Type 01 is clearly a car that’ll be more than just a number on a spreadsheet - it’s something designed for people to love and admire.
As Jaguar MD Rawdon Glover told me: “I was lucky enough to be at the Monterey Car week a month. I remember vividly walking away from there – there are some beautiful cars there – and we had a display of iconic Jaguars there as well. I came away thinking it's our job to ensure that in 40 years’ time there's a Type 01 here and it's worthy of its place on the concourse, and people are talking about its engineering prowess, it's design language and it stands the test of time.”
It wasn’t only the team on the ground in New York who I felt proud of – it was the tens of thousands of JLR employees all around the UK, and the couple of hundred thousand who work in the supply chain, who have and are putting their hearts and souls into the project. Some of them may well be your family, friends and neighbours and I hope some of the miserablists on social media who judge the car from a picture then take to their keyboards with an ill-judged comment remember that.
I had to leave the Jaguar party early in New York, but as I left Jaguar had parked a Type 01 outside. It was a shiny metallic blue, not the matt silver of the car I’d only seen in pictures or in a studio; a real car on a real street in a real city. And it looked magnificent.
I just wanted to stand and stare. And then, when I walked away, I had to stop, turn round and look again. It’s still not beautiful, but it is a great piece of modern design.
I reckon the new Jaguar has all the ingredients it needs to be successful, it deserves success and I hope it is a success. For the sheer hard work, ingenuity and bulldog spirit shown by the people behind it, it makes me proud to be British. Bloody proud.
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