Well, well, well. What do we have here then? It's the new Jaguar Type 00, shown in public for the first time at Paris Fashion Week, ferrying around actor Barry Keoghan, who evidently draws the short straw when it comes to celebrity transportation. I thought that Jaguar sales were dropping. So they PRETENDED to kill everything the brand stood for to make people realize what they're missing. Then they would say "whoopee it's a farce, here's a new F-type, this time with a V10." But no, evidently not. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Jaguar actually thinks people want to buy. Let's be clear about what we're looking at here. The Type 00 (pronounced "zero-zero," because apparently normal words aren't good enough anymore) is essentially a motorized block of cheese that's been left out in the sun too long. It's a featureless slab of matte blue nothingness, with all the character of a washing machine and all the presence of a librarian with laryngitis. The video shows it trundling along Parisian streets, looking for all the world like someone accidentally rendered an '80s concept car in real life. The only exterior details of note are some "brass ingots" mounted behind the front wheels. Brass. Ingots. On a car. What's next? Copper nuggets for door handles? Platinum shavings for windscreen wipers? Inside, it's even worse. There's a "spine" that runs from front to back, bisecting the interior like some sort of automotive Berlin Wall. There are just two seats, because apparently Jaguar owners don't have friends or children. And there's no rear window – cameras are used instead – because, you know, turning your head is just so 2020. Now, I've always had a soft spot for Jaguars. The E-Type was perhaps the most beautiful car ever made. The XJS, while flawed, had presence and character. The XJ220 was a magnificent beast. Even the more recent F-Type, while not perfect, was at least recognizably a Jaguar – sleek, graceful, with that hint of barely contained aggression. These were cars that made your heart beat faster when you saw them. The Type 00, by contrast, makes my heart sink. It looks like what would happen if you asked a committee of furniture designers who've never seen a car to design an autonomous taxi for the year 2050. It's a car designed for people who don't like cars. And what's with that ridiculously long bonnet? This is supposed to be an electric car, which means there's no engine up front to accommodate. Electric cars typically have short bonnets because they don't need the space – that's one of the advantages of electric powertrains. But Jaguar has decided to give the Type 00 a bonnet long enough to land a small aircraft on, presumably because someone at Jaguar still thinks it's 1965. The most telling thing about the car's appearance at Paris Fashion Week is that it shows exactly what Jaguar thinks of its new direction. This isn't a car company anymore; it's a fashion brand. Cars are just accessories now, like handbags or sunglasses – items to be seen with rather than things to be used and enjoyed. I can hear the pitch meeting now: "Let's make a car that doesn't look like a car, doesn't drive like a car, and doesn't feel like a car. Then let's launch it at fashion events rather than car shows. Genius!" I'm surprised they didn't just skip the wheels entirely and have four models carry it on a litter. To be fair to Jaguar, they have always been at the pinnacle of design innovation. The E-Type was revolutionary when it launched. The XJ redefined what a luxury saloon could be. Even the I-Pace was a bold, interesting take on the electric SUV format. Maybe they see something we don't. But for now, they see something we don't (want to). The Type 00 represents a complete departure from everything that made Jaguar special. It's not sleek, it's not beautiful, it's not even particularly interesting. It's just... there, taking up space, demanding attention without earning it. The saddest part is that the production version of this monstrosity is expected to debut by the end of this year. Which means that Jaguar, a company with one of the richest design heritages in automotive history, is genuinely betting its future on a car that looks like it was designed by someone who's only ever seen cars in Minecraft. I genuinely hope I'm wrong. I hope that when the production version appears, it will somehow transform into something worthy of the Jaguar badge. Something with grace, pace, and space, as William Lyons might have put it. Something that makes you turn for a second look as it passes by. But based on this concept, I'm not holding my breath. It seems that Jaguar has decided its future lies not in making cars that people want to drive, but in making mobile sculptures that people want to be seen in. And that's a shame, because while fashion comes and goes, true design excellence is timeless. And timeless is one thing the Type 00 definitely isn't.
