Jaguar’s ‘Copy Nothing’
There was a time — it was a long time ago, it seems — when car companies were in the business of designing and selling cars. They worked to make the cars they designed appealing as something more than just appliances.
Jaguar was among the leaders, once upon a time.
It just took the lead — in a very different direction. You may have already seen it. Jaguar’s Copy Nothing ad campaign. It doesn’t feature a single Jaguar. Which begs the question: What is Jaguar trying to sell?
Well, it looks like what whoever was behind the opening montage for the summer Olympics in France a few months back was trying to sell. That also had nothing to do with the Olympics but much to do with mocking Jesus and the Last Supper. Which — at the time — begged the question: Why do that?
Well, for the same reason that Jaguar is doing it now. The company that once designed and sold cars that were so beautiful it didn’t matter that they didn’t always run very well (it was said a Jaguar looks better on a lift than most cars look on the road) no longer cares much about cars, having committed to manufacturing battery-powered devices going forward. This “commitment” can be seen as a commitment to androgyny, one device being interchangeable with any other device.
The identity of a device comes down to what it is called — much the same as a man who calls himself a woman has assumed an identity. But without underlying reality.
In the case of androgynous cars, there is very little need for more than a few identities — that is, brands — because of the fundamental sameness. Of course, the idea seems to be that — just like the Alphabet People insist — there can be a limitless number of identities and that there will be a market for all of them, too.
What you just heard was the sound of Jaguar (and other would-be device peddlers) whistling past the graveyard.
A “Jaguar” that is just another Tesla with a different identity is not a Jaguar. It is a device trying to be another device. Tesla at least has an authentic identity in that the brand is synonymous with devices. That is what people who buy a Tesla want.
A device.
To understand the distinction between a Jaguar and a device, take a look at a 1960s E-Type and then take a look at a Model X, or any other model Tesla sells. Take a look under the hood of a Jag equipped with a V12 and then take a look at a Tesla’s “frunk.” What you see — and don’t — is all the difference.
Jaguar no longer makes cars like the E-Type or the XJs that looked just as good and maybe even better than Tawny Kitaen did back in the 1980s when she cavorted with them on MTV. And Jaguar no longer makes or sells the magnificent Jaguar engines it used to sell, either.
Like so many other brands that have lost their identity, Jaguar made the mistake of shifting from selling beautiful cars — sedans and coupes — to selling crossovers, which are inherently appliances. It is difficult to make an appliance beautiful because the form does follow function when the driving parameters are how many cubic feet of cargo space there are behind the second row and does it have a third row.
Jaguar’s crossovers are by no means ugly. But they aren’t beautiful works of art like the E-Type and XJ were and will always be. They lack the kind of beauty that makes up for other things, such as practicality.
And even reliability.
For exactly the same reason a man will indulge an exceptionally beautiful woman.
Today’s Jags are also already well down the road to being the same as everything else in another way. Most new Jaguar crossovers come standard with 2.0 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engines, just like most other crossovers — including crossovers that cost a third less than what a Jaguar-branded crossover costs.
This sameness is a consequence of compliance.
Jaguar, like every other car company (most of them now crossover companies), didn’t fight when they might have won the fight. Instead of spending money on ad campaigns explaining to people why it was becoming impossible to sell magnificent in-line sixes and even more magnificent V12s, money was spent on designing compliance engines, of which the 2.0-liter turbo four is the archetype. There is a reason why literally every brand that once sold its brand-specific engines now sells the Universal Engine — a 2.0 liter turbocharged four. It is the same reason, in its essence, why almost everyone wore a “mask.”
Because they were told to. Because they complied.
Behold the ugly results.
Why buy a Jaguar-branded crossover with a 2.0 liter four when you can buy a same-shaped crossover from another brand with a 2.0 liter four for a third or less the cost? This question seems to never have occurred to the people running Jaguar now.
Beauty sells. And sameness costs.
“The car,” said Sir William Lyons, the founder of Jaguar, “is the closest thing we will ever create to something that is alive.” Jaguar created many cars that were so alive it was easy to imagine them leaping.
As opposed to what we’re seeing now.
Live Vivid, everyone!
READ MORE from Eric Peters:
Tariffs, Cars, and the Whiskey War
The Imminent Death of Volkswagen
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