The Jaguar Type 00 is a 1000bhp super GT concept
1000bhp, £90,000 super GT concept car shows Jaguar’s bold new future
Is it what you were expecting? After all the noise, the tantrums, the global headlines, the news stories and the last minute leak, this is the new Jaguar: the Type 00. A copy of nothing, unless you're cruel and immediately thought it was the design Rolls-Royce rejected for its Spectre. Or Lady Penelope’s new company car.
Revealed at the Miami Art Fair this is Jaguar parking its past and getting ready to head down a future that will consist of purely electric vehicles built upon a new Jaguar Electrical Architecture (JEA) platform. Two models will initially be offered, the first a four-door GT car that will be shown by the end of 2025 and will very much be in the mould of Porsche’s Taycan, Audi’s e-tron GT and the Lotus Emeya but with a larger emphasis on luxury and a larger footprint closer to BMW’s i7. Following this will be an SUV, but not in the conventional sense as per its Range Rover cousins, but more, we’re led to believe, in the guise of Ferrari’s Puronsange, albeit without a naturally-aspirated V12. Prices will start from ‘around £90,000’ with the average selling price expected to be £120,000, which is still less than a Range Rover.
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Looking at the spy images Jaguar has released of the GT and the proportions of the concept, expect all four-door Type 00 derivatives to feature suicide rear doors. The two-door concept is just that, a concept for now with the product plan currently occupied with a question mark under such a model’s viability.
At around five-metres long, over two-metres wide the Type 00 is no sleek or lithe piece of automotive design. It’s bold, broad and more imposing than a Range Rover. Even Jaguar’s top brass admit it won’t fit down quite a few roads, but that owners will have other cars in their fleets for such scenarios. Which sounds… naive.
Being a concept, a very old school one at that, that was crying out for a motor show to be revealed at, there are more details to take away than serious production data. The Jaguar leaper remains, trimmed and toned for the first quarter of the second millennium, but the growler doesn’t, replaced by a stylised ‘J’ and the Jaguar brand name has a new font and a curiously positioned uppercase ‘G’ in the middle of it.
What is also new and showcased here is Jaguar’s new face that’s made up of multiple horizontal bars, 16 on the front and rear of the car. Although these can also be placed vertically. And in a different quantity. And on this concept, across the rear window, too.
As a piece of design the Type 00 concept is muscular, full of tension and instantly has a ‘want one’ appeal, fuelling a desire to be behind its wheel immediately. That’s what successful concepts are designed to do, and that’s exactly what this one does. That’s a big box ticked. It oozes desirability, although there will still be some corners of society who think it’s a load of woke nonsense and wish Gregg Wallace was on TV more.
Should you be driving it, don't expect any soothing, silky straight-six engines purring away to pull you along in your new Jag, rather a monster battery and multiple motors developed to soothe your Jaguar journey, where performance will be a factor but not the priority. Currently, we’re in the ‘let the design team have their moment’ phase so technical details, aside from a proposed range of 478 miles, are thin to the point of non-existent.
However, as is the modern way, expect circa 1000bhp, which will require either three or four motors, most likely the latter as this will allow JLR’s engineering team to optimise the hardware and software as it’s developed. There’s an undercurrent of confidence within JLR that it will be the most technologically advanced car it has ever built.
And the most luxurious, too. Much of the interior is pure design fantasy, the 3.2 metre central spine made from brass won’t make production if they want it to pass occupant extraction tests, and the totem mood lighting and Prism case for storing it in are best saved for the next Marvel franchise. However, the dual screens for the driver and passenger that fold away when not required make perfect sense, with Jaguar working on the capability for the head-up display to conform to the latest regulations that would allow the screens to be out of sight when you’re driving.
Being very 21st century, don't expect the new Jaguar to go heavy on the old Jaguar fixtures and fittings. Chrome, leather and burr walnut trim won’t lead the trim options, instead more suitably luxurious materials such as wool blends will be woven through the interior.
What is at stake for Jaguar with the Type 00 and the models it spawns can not be over estimated. Existing factories have been closed in order for them to be converted to build electric cars. Dealers will have nothing new to sell for more than 12 months, but will still be expected to sell used and service existing fleets. Customers will be none the wiser as to what their new Jaguar might look like until 12 months from now. If copying nothing doesn’t work, there really is nothing left for Jaguar.
