The signs point to Jaguar’s Type 01 being a huge success | Frankel’s Insight

Because while no one is saying that if this car does not succeed that means it’s curtains for one of Britain’s most beloved brands, so too is no-one denying that the entire short to medium term plans of that brand depend on the success of the Type 01 and the other Jaguars that will be spun off the same platform.

I can remember the buzz around the Autocar office where I worked when the Jaguar XJ40 — the all new XJ — was launched in the 1980s, and this, surely, is far more important and consequential than that?

If there is a concern about the car’s future, it lies in the decision to make the Type 01 purely battery powered, with neither the appetite within the boardroom nor the provision with the structure to equip it with an internal combustion engine if required. When the decision was taken to make it EV only (which would have been five or more years ago) the assumed rate of adoption turned out to be the case.

And while Jaguar executives are outwardly confident that opinions are coming around to the EV point of view, even at the lofty market position the Type 01 will occupy, privately they’d not be human if they really had no doubts about it.

On the other hand, there is something we know about Jaguar, which had held true ever since the earliest days of the marque. When Jaguar leads, it succeeds; when it follow, it fails. Look at the XK120, the E-type, the Mk2, the original XJ6 and even the (yes, also electric) I-Pace. When these cars came out, they were the best and most desirable cars in their category, and by a distance.

By contrast, look at the likes of the X-type and even the XE, both wannabe BMW 3-series rivals. And while XE was actually as good as a 3-series, it wasn’t enough. An alternative no better than what you already have provides no grounds for changing your choice.

But all you need do is take one look at the Type 01 to know it has no interest in following anyone. Even wearing mild camouflage, the boldness of the vision behind it is clear to see. This is not Jaguar timidly asking ‘me too, please’, this is Jaguar proclaiming ‘take a look at this’.

And we did as it swept up the Hill, pushed and pulled by no fewer than one thousand horses. JLR top brass are under no illusions that this car is not going to be for everyone. As Jaguar MD Rawdon Glover told me, “I’d rather some people hated it, and others truly loved it than no one having strong feelings about it.” And given Jaguar’s unstated but clearly quite conservative volume aspirations for the car, this would seem to be the right approach.

Did I mention I’ve driven it? You’re not going to get any kind of definitive verdict here, because it wasn’t a long drive, it was all on a test track and the car was only 85 per cent finished. But it was enough at least to suggest in the strongest terms that those traditional Jaguar values — high performance and extreme comfort married to deft handling — are alive and well and living the Type 01. It was as encouraging as that kind of never particularly satisfying, usually quite frustrating but always worthwhile prototype drive can be.

But an enormous job remains to be done, and not just getting the car ready for sale. Jaguar is also going to need to find a way of not only re-introducing itself to the public long after it last made a car, but to do so in a whole new part of the market, forsaking the premium sector for the pure luxury category, and the six-figure price tag that lies at its entrance.

I must confess I remain fascinated by this car, and if Jaguar pulls it off and makes a success of it in a still EV-sceptic market, it’ll be one of the greatest design, engineering and corporate feats the car market has seen in decades.

For now, however, all true Jaguar fans can do (and I’m betting that’s the vast majority of people reading these words and certainly the person writing them) is keep our fingers crossed for its formal unveiling in October. It’s going to be a long wait, so let’s all hope it’s worth it.

Photography by Charlie Brenninmeijer and Joe Harding.