Jaguar Type 00: On the luxury of concept cars, reverse-polarization, reverse-imperialism, and the mighty black panther

 
 
LOL-Essay 004
December 3rd, 2024
By Peter Seele
 
Jaguar is back with a big bang. Type 00 was introduced today. Well done. The formerly British car maker, now owned by Tata, a multinational corporation from India, a former British colony under former British rule of the former British empire concentrates so much of symbolism in times of automotive turmoil between the greenlash, an idealized electric vehicle age in times of globalization. A globalization, that is no longer characterized by liberalization as from the World Bank program in the 90ies, but by political, cultural and geographical compartmentalization and nationalization in times of a multipolar world, where it is still unclear, to which pole the global compass is fixed.
The woke-not-so-woke pre-campaign went viral. Fatalists were forecasting the end of the brand and carmaker. Too woke. Too pink. Too arty. Toot Toot. I can’t hear you. Just another example of the notorious “go woke, go broke” mantra, excessively used by non-woke conservatives, who also today are not buying the current Jaguar models, whose design is as boring and camouflaged as the conservative hunters in their Barbour jackets in the woods. In terms of outreach the arty-pink-diverse campaign was a great success. Too many pundits, journalists and influencers could not resist to comment on the video clip without having seen the concept car, that was released one week later. Well done, Jaguar. Now the concept car is here, it looks fabulous and fresh and I am damn sure, it will never see series-production and maturity phase.
However, the concept car Jaguar Type 00 is a great topic for a LOL-essay. Let’s tailor the argument:
 
1. Wokeness and polarization
The producers of the campaign released at the Art Basel in Miami 2024 did a great job in making the video arty and controversial and not showing a car, using way too much pink and by redesigning the logo, where the elegant cat jumping to get its prey is removed. By using the stereotypes of wokeness, the media-reflex was anti-woke, which seems to be the sign of our time not opening up the minds but narrowing them down to binary, nationalist, populist, tribalist thinking. A planned scandal. Well deserved. So is the concept car woke, like the first video was paving the road? Hell, no. It is brutalist design, just like the cybertruck from Elon Musk, a brutalist in every sense. Elegant, but brutalist. Interior shows Alabaster, brass and concrete. Individualized passengers divided by a grating. An armlength of distance is guaranteed inside the Type 00.
We therefore need to understand the campaign as anti-woke by feeding woke-clichees. It was just a trigger in the attention economy to address those who like the design language of art and brutalism, that is Swiss by nature through Corbusier, Botta and the Art Basel. But the real code is elitist, not woke. Which seems more than understandable for a car, that probably comes with a price tag (if the series production is close to the concept car) that probably nearer to a quarter million, than the equivalent of a plain Porsche 911 (which in reality you cannot buy, but that is another story). Everyone, who argued along the lines of “go woke, go broke” has – anticipated by an ex-post perspective – been instrumentalized to feed the attention economy and success of a viral campaign. Woke was a bluff. A trick. A teaser. Not a branded ideology of a currently boring car maker, who was risking everything, as everything is at stake.
The Jaguar concept car Type 00 is as woke as Oscar Wilde was establishment. Of course he was. But that is not the point about Oscar Wilde.
 
2. Imperialism and back
British car industry. What a story. Bentley: part of Volkswagen. Mini: part of BMW. Vauxhall: Part of General Motors. Rolls-Royce: part of BMW. Aston-Martin: Was Ford, than private equity with Mercedes V8 engine. Land Rover and Range Rover and Jaguar: Part of Tata. What an irony. The British empire of noble brands. Brands, but no technology. The United Kingdom with a king and royal family that falls apart. The former colony India, now independent and – what an irony of fate – the largest democracy in the world with global entrepreneurs and companies and one of them, Tata is the owner of the Jaguar, an animal, that never lived in England by the way. On a symbolic level, Tata wins in any case. If the new Jaguar relaunch fails, it is – symbolically – the late revenge of the former colony. If the risky and fresh design and brand is a success, then it is the success of a new world with new actors, symbolically the language spoken in the visuals of the campaign.
Imperialism after imperialism is commercial success. Consumers are self-determined masters of their own decision, feeding corporate empires.
 
3. Concept cars and luxury
Yes, Jaguar Type 00 aims at the luxury segment. Rock bottom was the Jaguar Wagon, called “sportbrake”. A Jaguar wagon, that is as exciting and consistent as a Porsche Panamera wagon or a Volkswagen Phaeton. But the real problem to enter the luxury segment (luxury, not just expensive), is to keep the design for series production. Just have a look into the history of elegant and iconic concept cars. And have a look at what happened to the design of the concept car. Remember the amazing Mercedes EQXX from 2022 (https://www.mbusa.com/en/future-vehicles/vision-eqxx)? What if they had built it in reality?


​The Cybertruck still looks like a concept car. But that is exactly the reason why it will not enter in some countries, as the edges are too sharp and the overall design is too dangerous for pedestrians. I would think the same holds true for the Jaguar Type 00: With a flat side-board in the front, where you could put your 80 zoll TV-screen in a living room, this is just too dangerous and the cw-value will be only great in outer space, where there is no aerodynamics. That is the price, brutalists are willing to pay. But mass or serial production? I would be surprised.
From a luxury-as-design perspective, the luxury would be to make the concept car reality, not some diluted and boring and compliant deduction.
 
4. The black panther is the new jaguar
Finally, and summing up the previous arguments: The world famous car show “Top Gear” in their first video on the Jaguar Type 00, which is currently presented in only two colors (pink and light-blue), played around with the design of the car and presented it in black (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QzGlTULmheI# watch at 2:51 ). What a blast. Does that car look woke anymore? No. It is a brutal but elegant predator. Like the black panther chasing its prey. That is more the reality of the Jaguar Type 00, when it becomes a Type 007 one day in the future. If Jaguar has not made a deal with the next James Bond installment, it is about time.