Jaguar’s controversial brand change may be justified after all

Jaguar is in a hole, and that hole only got deeper when the brand broke a new sales record. The Jaguar F-Pace, the only model currently in production, is now the worst-selling vehicle in the US. US dealers have sold just 304 of the $70,000 vehicles in the past 45 days, leaving 2,511 F-Pace SUVs available for sale. Based on current sales trends, it takes 372 days to sell the shares currently available.

Jaguar’s decline has been visible for decades; the once great brand that falls into insignificance and tries to meet the demands of the market at every moment. Jaguar once made some of the best cars in the world, and car enthusiasts flocked to it in droves. Anyone who has driven an early ’70s XJ6, or even looked at the lines of an E-Type in the soft light of dusk, will understand. Jaguar cars merely transcended technology, even though it was quite advanced, and instead traded on personality. And then they threw it away.

To provide the most accurate and up-to-date information, this article uses data sourced from various manufacturers and authoritative sources.

The F-Pace sales slump is killing critical infrastructure

A car brand is built on more than just the allure of its current models. The money spent and earned starts much earlier and extends far beyond that magical moment when the seller hands you the keys and you drive off into the sunset. Jaguar is part of JLR, or Jaguar Land Rover, and shares R&D, manufacturing, logistics, sales and aftermarket support.

It was recently the victim of a massive cyber attack that halted production for several months, and it could take until January to get up to speed. It has cost the business unit around $2 billion to date and has affected more than 5,000 suppliers, mainly in Britain. The biggest concern for JLR was not Jaguar, but the effect of the disruption on the highly profitable Land Rover side of the business.

One model, no sales, no network

There are 349 franchises selling Jaguar in the US, most of which are dual-brand operations that also sell Land Rover. But every brand in a joint operation must do its part to make it work. The majority of a dealership’s profits are not in the profit margin from new car sales, but rather in the financing that comes with it, and in aftermarket service and spare parts. But to make this profit, you have to start selling cars.

Land Rover has the popular Discovery and Defender models to rake in the profits, but Jaguar only has the F-Pace, a great SUV, but it is no longer sold. Why buy a $70,000 car if the manufacturer has lost confidence in it? The entire Jaguar network, from supplier networks to dealers and aftermarket activities, is at risk of collapse. Now that Jaguar is in a position where its 349 dealers will take more than a year to sell off the remaining F-Pace shares, there is no longer the financial incentive to keep the network running.

Choosing to start all over again

Jaguar has been so under the radar that it’s hard to find out if they still make the F-Pace. Production was supposed to stop at the end of 2024, but apparently it continued, at least until the cyberattack earlier this year. By ceasing production of the remaining petrol car, with the promise of re-launching as a very expensive EV brand sometime in 2026, Jaguar has cut the cord.

By the time the first EV rolls out, there will no longer be a network. Jaguar management should know this, and the choice to start from scratch was probably a conscious one, but why? Why throw away more than a century of heritage to launch a new line of very expensive electric cars in a market full of very expensive electric cars, while the price of electric cars is falling so quickly that they have almost no resale value?

The terrible rebranding was just the last straw

In November 2024, Jaguar announced a complete rebrand. The logo changes were bad enough, but the “Copy Nothing” ad shocked and horrified the automotive world, and those who still loved the brand. The ad didn’t feature a car, just a bunch of strangely dressed people doing random things, with messages like “be exuberant,” “live vibrant” and “just delete” on the screen.

The ad seemed to tell traditional Jaguar buyers that they were no longer needed, without really defining who would take their place. Elon Musk tweeted: “Do you sell cars?”

The value of the Jaguar brand

Despite years of poor management, bought, sold, merged, bent, stapled and mutilated, the Jaguar brand still had a lot of equity. There was still enough respect and goodwill for Jaguar to make a comeback and be welcomed back as one of the iconic car brands.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

Instead of a carefully crafted turnaround strategy, Jaguar management seemed to have opted for a clean-cut approach, scrapping the old and replacing it with something completely new. They even deleted their entire archive. More than a century of heritage was thrown away. The company would only build electric cars, big, powerful and very expensive. The sad thing is that they could have built these new electric cars anyway, without throwing away their legacy.

Fifty years of greatness, followed by fifty years of decline

Jaguar was founded in 1922 as the Swallow Sidecar Company, was renamed SS Cars and made its first car in 1934. After World War II the SS name was an issue and in 1945 the company was renamed Jaguar Cars.

Performance, power and class

The 1950s and 1960s are considered the golden age of Jaguar. In 1961, iconic models such as the XK120, the Mark VII, the Mark 2 and the fantastic E-Type were launched. Even Enzo Ferrari called the E-Type ‘the most beautiful car ever made’.

Jaguar dominated in motorsport, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1951 and 1953. It made cars for British Prime Ministers and had royal warrants. The iconic XJ6 sedan was launched in 1968, bringing with it a new design direction while maintaining a visual link with the past.

Badly managed, merged, sold

Like many car manufacturers, Jaguar faced serious challenges in the 1970s, including the oil crisis in ’73 and later that decade. Jaguar had merged with British Leyland in 1968, which was actually the start of many of its problems. It faced financial challenges, labor strikes, quality control issues and the use of suboptimal parts that affected reliability.

Jaguar, spun off from Leyland and listed on the stock exchange, was subsequently bought by Ford, which later sold it to the Indian company Tata. Under Tata, the Jaguar brand experienced a strong revival, with powerful cars such as the F-Pace SUV is doing very well.

A rich and luxurious legacy eroded

During its heyday, Jaguar was the car of choice of millionaires, prime ministers, playboys and bank robbers. The cars were beautiful, fast and stylish. The company then lost its way and still made luxury cars, but lacked the style of previous years.

Tata comes to the rescue

Indian giant Tata provided the force needed to revive the brand, which it did with a new generation of Jaguar models. The F-Type was an homage to the earlier E-Type, but with a modern design and performance, while the I-Pace was an EV SUV. The XF was redesigned and improved, while the luxury XJ sedan carried the brand.

The race to the bottom

Jaguar peaked in 2017 and then went downhill sharply. The product range became outdated without major updates. The brand also had reliability problems, including battery problems in the I-Pace. Jaguar had made a major investment in diesel engines in Europe, and the Dieselgate scandal caused a lot of damage there. Although the EV program was ambitious, it could not compete with rivals such as Tesla.

Jaguar’s luxury SUVs, such as the F-Pace and the smaller E-Pace, were absorbed by the luxury German brands and quickly surpassed. As a result of these missteps, sales declined. In the US, sales fell from 40,000 in 2017 to 17,000 in 2021, falling below 10,000 in 2022. Europe was even worse, with just 49 cars sold in April 2025.

EVs to the rescue?

It takes a fool to predict Jaguar’s inevitable end. Maybe the big bet on luxury electric vehicles will work. After all, parent company Tata has deep pockets and would probably love to have a luxury EV brand that can compete with Tesla and the major Chinese brands. At this stage the patient is on life support and we will see if recovery is possible.

Sources: USA today