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Jaguar wants to bounce back from “mediocrity” and it will do it by targeting rich American buyers with polarizing designs. That’s according to comments made to investors by JLR’s boss last month.
In a frank discussion about the huge challenge facing the storied but struggling brand, new Jaguar Land Rover CEO Adrian Mardell and design chief Gerry McGovern recalled how Jaguar had been successful in the 1990s, particularly in North America, when its cars were more expensive and targeted a wealthier demographic than the brand has been chasing for the past 20 years.
“There are 20 million millionaires in the U.S. alone,” Auto News Europe reports Mardell saying. “So, a lower volume, higher price positioning is absolutely the right position for Jaguar today.”
But JLR chiefs conceded that the brand’s strategy of chasing volume during the previous two decades, first under Ford, and then Tata, meant it had lost touch with the wealthy car buying community. While Mardell diplomatically admitted that “it’s reasonable to assume there is a lot of work to build that brand equity,” McGovern was more forthright in his assessment, and about the need for “fearless” designs conceived to shock and re-engage the wealthy.
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“What we will not worry about is being loved by everybody, because that is the kiss of death,” Auto News Europe reports McGovern saying of the polarizing new designs heading our way from Jag.“That is what put Jaguar in the situation it is in today, which is with no equity whatsoever.”
Later this year Jaguar will reveal the first of three new all-electric vehicles, a four-door GT with a range of up to 430 miles (700 km) that will be in showrooms in 2025 priced from around $125,000. Two more EVs will follow, both built from the same new JEA (Jaguar Electric Architecture) platform, and we’ve got money on at least one of them chasing Bentley’s audience, while a crossover of some kind also seems likely.