07 Sep 07
Video: Jaguar XF: the inside story
The XF is a remarkably brave car for Jaguar to be unveiling right now. Not brave because it's a radical new design. It's not. Visually it's a big departure for Jaguar, but where it's ended up is not a radical place. It looks just like the cars against which it must compete: Audi A6, BMW 5-Series, Lexus GS and Mercedes E-Class. A pretty impressive list. You'd need to be very foolish or very brave to tackle them on their own terms. Let's plump for brave.
Other recent Jaguars have taken the heritage route, so they've looked like Jaguars rather than the opposition. The S-Type, the car being replaced by the XF, looks like it's from a manga remake of Inspector Morse. The XJ, which is in competition with the Mercedes S-Class, the Audi S8, the Lexus LS and the BMW 7-Series, doesn't look like any of them. The X-Type looks like an XJ at the front and an S-Type at the rear, or a Volvo V40 in the case of the estate. The XK, meanwhile, looks like the old XK, and the XJ-S, and various Aston Martins.
The Jaguarness of Jaguar design is a good thing if you're taken with the idea of Jaguar, but it hasn't delivered the sales that such good cars deserve. This suggests that a lot of potential Jaguar buyers would rather have an S-Class rival that looks like an S-Class, an Audi A4 rival that looks like an A4, or a GS rival that looks like a GS. Well, now they can.
It's a very grown-up way to do business. No more excuses. No special pleading. No reliance on tradition and charisma. No 'yes, but'. Instead, study the market, pick the best bits and copy them, hang on to what works about your old product but discard the rest, and set some realistic sales targets.
