They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

But if you went on the internet or watched the news or visited any automotive website in November last year, you might have thought the definition of insanity was what the decision-makers at Jaguar Land Rover had done to the Jaguar brand.

Gone was the leaping feline, the classic British elegance, and the sense of exclusivity and prestige cherished by those who love, drive and collect Jags – mostly wealthy baby boomers. 

In their place was a gaggle of high-end fashion models dressed in fluorescent haute couture, like extras from The Hunger Games movies. The 30-second ad was as far from “wealthy boomer” as you could get. The brand had abandoned its traditional fanbase completely. The internet went wild.

“What a joke,” one social media user wrote. “Whoever agreed to this needs to know they’ve just killed a British icon.”

The ad didn’t even feature a vehicle, leading Tesla boss Elon Musk to quip, “Do you sell cars?”

By universal acclaim, the rebrand was the biggest disaster to befall an automotive brand in recent memory. In the months since, Musk might have actually managed to surpass that. 

Also, in the months since, Jaguar has not backed down on its shiny new direction. 

In December, it released a concept car, the Type 00. The all-electric vehicle features a long bonnet, a sweeping roofline, a fastback profile, butterfly doors, a ‘pantograph’ tailgate, a “panoramic roof with body-harmonised glazing” and 23-inch alloy wheels. It’s a dramatic silhouette and “a fearless new face for Jaguar”, according to the marketing bumf. 

“The ‘Type’ prefix is a link to the brand’s provenance, to models like the pioneering E-type,” the company said. “The first zero references zero tailpipe emissions. The second represents its status as car zero in new lineage.” 

A production version of the Type 00 is due to launch in 2026. The first newgeneration Jaguar to actually go into production will be a four-door GT, which the manufacturer plans to reveal later this year. It will target a driving range up to 770 km (Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure) or 692 km (Environmental Protection Agency) on a single charge and adding up to 321 km of range in as little as 15 minutes with rapid charging.

But the question remains, who is this new Jag for? Who does Jaguar Land Rover expect to buy it? The marketing makes it clear they’re no longer targeting those monied baby boomers that they’ve always relied upon. 

Top Gear’s Ollie Kew wrote that Jaguar is shifting away from being a competitor with BMW, Audi and Mercedes and “morphing into a Porsche and Bentley rival, selling £100k ultra-lux EVs to a younger, more diverse ‘cash-rich, time-poor’ clientele”.

Why? Jaguar hasn’t been able to rely on its traditional customers for quite some time. 

“Here’s the nasty truth that’s been lost in the storm of vitriol,” Kew writes. “Jaguar doesn’t sell enough cars. Not just at the moment: it hasn’t been consistently profitable for years. Decades.”

Jaguar hasn’t been competitive for a long time. It’s all well and good to have people love your brand, your heritage, your classic makes, but if they’re not buying your new cars, then you’re not making money. 

Jaguar has tried shaking things up in more traditional ways over the years. In the 60s and 70s they were positioned as classic British luxury sports cars. Dogged by quality and reliability in the 80s, in the 90s new owners Ford focused on improving the vehicles, repositioned the brand to compete directly with BMW and Mercedes, emphasised performance alongside luxury, and expanded their target market to include younger professionals. By the 2000s, Jaguar was shifting to a “premium performance” footing. The brand was already trying to shed the idea it made cars for a wealthy, older demographic. In the 2010s, under the ownership of Tata Motors, Jaguar introduced sportier design language, expanded its SUV line-up, and tried harder to appeal to female consumers.

Nothing has really worked.

At best, as Kew pointed out, for every Jaguar XE sold, there were six BMW 3 Series on the road.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result, then Jaguar’s latest rebrand, and the Type 00, are part of an attempt to shake things up and get a different, more profitable result.

Will it work? Only time will tell.

Images by Jaguar