Opinion: Why Jaguar’s redesign is actually a good thing – despite all the criticism

The new Jaguar Type 00 concept has just been revealed at Miami fashion week, and it’s certainly striking to look at. It needed to be as well, because Jaguar has just undergone one of the most radical and opinion-splitting revamps in motoring history – with new logos and trendy catchphrases.

It’s safe to say that not everyone is a fan of this British brand’s new direction. Social media has lit up over the last few days with criticism from thousands of fans, and even Elon Musk. The thing is though, we think this change is actually a good thing. Here’s why…

Why is everyone so angry at Jaguar?

First though, let’s go over why this drastic change in direction has gone down about as well as a fart in a lift. You see Jaguar has a long and illustrious history of making ground-breaking sports cars. In fact, it’s held the record for the world’s fastest production car twice.

The XK120 would hit 120mph back in 1948 thanks to its lightweight aluminium body – cutting-edge tech at the time – and then the XJ220 came along in 1992 with its clever active aero and hit a top speed of 217 mph.

It was also the first car manufacturer to ever build a car with an aluminium chassis and body with the 2003 XJ, making it more advanced than the Audi A8 of the time.

But what does all this innovation have to do with Jaguar’s recent rebrand? Well die-hard Jag fans were pretty shocked to see a new advertising campaign which featured a lot of trendy buzz words and outlandish outfits, but not a single car.

Jaguar has also deleted all of its social media posts featuring older models, with its Instagram now solely featuring the new rebrand. You may see this as Jaguar completely abandoning its rich heritage, so why has it gone so bold with this revamp?

Why Jaguar’s new rebrand is actually quite clever

You see, over the past couple of years Jaguar hasn’t really been innovating like it has done in the past – in fact it’s been playing catch-up to the German competition. It was working on a replacement for the XJ in 2019, however that project was canned at the last minute.

Jag has also been suffering from slumping sales in the last few years. In 2023 it sold 64,000 cars, while Porsche shifted 320,000. BMW also managed to sell over five times more cars than Jaguar in the same year, with 2.2 million of them finding new homes.

It seems then that Jaguar has been stagnating for a while now, so some drastic action was needed to pump some life back into the much-loved brand. Well this new rebrand, while controversial, has certainly got people talking about it again.

It’s garnered attention online from Joe Rogan, Nigel Farage and even Elon Musk, and Google searches for Jaguar have gone through the roof, almost doubling compared to the average search rate over the last five years.

Like it or not, this dramatic new look for Jaguar has done exactly what it needed to do – shine some much-needed light on what was becoming a forgotten British car maker. It has better hope this pays off as well, because Jaguar is investing £15 billion over the next five years to build a whole new range of electric cars, starting with a four-door GT inspired by the 00 Concept, which you can find out more about in our dedicated story.

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