This is quite the week for British design. And we have experienced our XK 120 moment.
Jaguar unveiled its Type 00 concept at Miami Art Week to show the direction of the brand. And any doubts that might have lingered are disappearing—maybe not all gone, but they are diminishing in number.
The future Jaguar will be a four-door GT, and not a two-door coupé like the concept, but as an indication of where things are heading, it’s a refreshing, dramatic change—which is greatly needed if the brand is to have a chance in the second half of the 2020s and beyond.
The long-bonnet, slung-back GT proportions are entirely different to what has gone before, and entirely different to what is on the market today. Think of the flights of fancy of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the exciting show cars that stirred our imagination when they appeared in period magazines—Jaguar will be distilling this into a future production model, and odds are it won’t stray far from Type 00.
And we have been here once before: when Jaguar unveiled its XK 120 at Earls’ Court in 1948, it was unlike anything that had gone before. The first postwar supercar. And its styling did indeed inform Jaguar for years to come—maybe too long, when you consider the 1998 S-type was still borrowing from its template.
Jaguar calls the approach ‘fearless’. But then it had no other choice.
Now the elements of the rebrand begin making sense: a clear statement that this is not about heritage because that has run its course. It is about the future and where Jaguar sees itself fitting in. It is reinterpreting its DNA in relation to the 2020s and 2030s, but not in relation to its heyday of the 1950s and 1960s.
Jaguar sees its brand as future-facing, and about time, too. With hindsight, it probably always should have been. At the unveiling, Gerry McGovern, OBE, Jaguar’s chief creative officer, says his creative heroes were David Bowie, Vivienne Westwood, and architect Richard Rogers, all of whom attracted controversy when their creativity was at its best. This is no exception.
Is the new logotype suitable? Perhaps, in the way of a fashion brand, though I still wonder if it will date. But for Type 00 and for the new production model, maybe. The artist mark, the circular double-J, makes sense on the wheels. The leaper on the front wing is subtle, about the only nod to the past.
The XK 120 opened up a new market. It was a bold statement. It wasn’t about copying other luxury brands. And neither is this.
CEO Adrian Mardell equates Type 00’s reveal to that of the E-type in 1961, but I disagree: the E-type had been previewed in the lines of the D-type racer and the XKSS. It was a logical evolution of their forms. Jaguar’s forms are still here on Type 00, but heavily reinterpreted: at the right angle, the haunches over the rear wheels can be made out, but this is no XJ6 pastiche. The sleek fastback might hint at the E-type but there is no slavish attempt to bank on a 63-year-old design. The full-width taillights are like nothing we have ever seen before, with the appearance of louvres in between. Up front the new Jaguar face is unapologetic; the grilleless face is vertical and unadorned but for horizontal ribbing: who needs the adornment of chrome, which only serves to anchor one in the past? Go round the corners with the distinctive new headlights and the surfaces bend up over the front wheels, a powerful statement of intent.
Open the butterfly doors and inside is a modernist interior that is as dramatic as the exterior. A brass spine splits the cabin and the two screens up front; brass, travertine stone and textiles combine as ‘bold pieces of art,’ says Jaguar’s chief materiality designer, Mary Crisp. Travertine stone is used as a plinth to support the seats and the spine, while a wool blend wraps the seats, sound bar, and flooring.
Quality remains the elephant in the room. Jaguar says it has rethought every part of the process to ensure that it will be built in from the start. Certainly the EV architecture is all-new, allowing for this rethink. We can only hope that this, too, is an area where Jaguar can make a bold, positive departure from the past.
The end of 2025 cannot come soon enough for Jaguar as its new model reaches production. As a prelude, Type 00 has got us excited.
Jack Yan is founder and publisher of Lucire.
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