Claws out for Jaguar’s pink panther

The concept car, which will form the basis for Jaguar’s highly anticipated electric GT, has attracted widespread ridicule. Critics compared it to the Barbie car and Lady Penelope’s FAB 1 from Thunderbirds.

Leaked images of the new Jaguar

It is pink, sleek and, in all ways, entirely unrecognisable compared with what has gone before.

Computer-generated images of Jaguar’s new concept car were leaked online hours before the British manufacturer was set to unveil its new designs in Miami.

The pictures of the electric car – in hot Barbie pink and baby blue – reveal the extent of the brand’s relaunch.

It is low-slung with a long bonnet, wide grille and swollen arches to accommodate large-diameter, wide-set alloy wheels.

The concept car, which will form the basis for Jaguar’s highly anticipated electric GT, attracted ridicule online. Critics compared it to the Barbie car and Lady Penelope’s FAB 1 from Thunderbirds. Others said it should be nicknamed the Pink Panther. It is not known what colours the four-door GT will be available in when it goes on sale in mid-2026.

I think I've identified the new customer demographic for Jaguar pic.twitter.com/ZkCYpBe8j7

— Lionheart (@wjlionheart) December 2, 2024

Jaguar is undergoing the biggest overhaul in its 90-year history. It has ceased production of all former models and is relaunching as an entirely electric brand, initially with three new models. A Jaguar spokesman said he was “aware” of the images circulating online and described the colours as Miami pink and London blue.

“Miami pink celebrates the vibrancy of the city while London blue, a modern take on the opalescent silver blue of the E-Type, is a nod to Jaguar’s British heritage,” the spokesman said.

The drastic change of image has attracted fierce debate. The company revealed the design elements of the relaunch last month, including replacing the teeth-baring big-cat “growler” logo that has adorned the grilles, bonnets and steering wheels of Jaguar cars for decades.

A 1961 Jaguar E-Type.

Jaguar also unveiled its new branding and colour scheme and debuted a promotional video featuring models with asymmetrical haircuts and brightly coloured, haute couture clothing walking around a Martian landscape bathed in bright pink. The campaign was accompanied by marketing slogans such as “delete ordinary”, “live vivid” and “copy nothing”.

High-profile critics including Elon Musk and Nigel Farage accused the brand of “going woke” and “throwing away heritage”.

Senior executives at the company leapt to its defence, arguing that the new look represents a total overhaul and that it is looking to attract new, younger and more diverse buyers. The leaked images show the car with an oval steering wheel, units-thin LED strip lights and large alloy wheels. It does not have a rear windscreen, instead boasting a rear-view camera on each side.

Autocar, the news website, said of the leaked images: “Clearly, it is completely unrelated to any Jaguar model that has gone before – making good on the company’s ambition for its cars to be ‘a copy of nothing’.”

Images from Jaguar’s rebrand.

Rawdon Glover, Jaguar’s managing director, defended the brand’s new look, arguing that people such as Farage were no longer important to the brand’s vision. He also denied the video was intended as a “woke” statement.

“If we play in the same way that everybody else does, we’ll just get drowned out. So we shouldn’t turn up like an auto brand,” he said last month. “We need to re-establish our brand and at a completely different price point, so we need to act differently. We wanted to move away from traditional automotive stereotypes.”

The concept car will be officially unveiled at a show at Miami Art Week on Monday evening.

Jaguar recently began road-testing a prototype of its new Super-GT EV. It will launch in mid-2026 and packs more than 575 bhp. It will have a range upwards of 430 miles and be priced at more than 100,000, pounds positioning it as a rival to the Porsche Taycan.

The Times