“Great design polarizes,” Jaguar says
In November of last year, Jaguar came out swinging with a shocking new campaign based on the ethos of founder Sir William Lyons, who said, “A Jaguar should be a copy of nothing.” The internet burst into flames upon the unveiling of Type 00, Jaguar’s latest concept. It’s a sweeping machine that takes a big step away from what people typically think of in the Jaguar heritage. And that’s the point.
Jaguar
Everyone from Top Gear’s James May to the U.S. president weighed in on the new brand identity, sometimes with strong words. Jaguar, collectively, shrugged.
“Great design polarizes,” Jaguar managing director Rawdon Glover told Car and Driver in April. “If you try to please everybody, chances are you’re not going to have lasting design. We don’t want to be vanilla. It’s a very distinctive design. People need to get in and see themselves in it, because it needs that sense of physicality.”
It’s true that seeing it in person is a totally different experience from viewing a two-dimensional image on a screen. The brass provenance plate catches the eye, as does the travertine stone supporting the floating seats, and the minimalist interior. But it’s the blue hue, called French Ultramarine, that is the most striking thing about this concept, especially the science behind it.
Exploring the limits of color saturation
A custom color developed in‑house by the Jaguar creative team, French Ultramarine looks like it tiptoes the line between a matte and satin finish. It glows from within like Superman’s Kryptonite would look if Kryptonite were blue. A singular color could be boring draped across any old car, but not on this one.
Jaguar
Axel Goulée, one of the leads of the design team at Jaguar specializing in materials, calls it a “shock” of color. Jaguar developed a very specific pigment for this color alongside its in-house paint specialists, with the directive to go 100 percent on saturation. Pushing the chemistry to the edge, Goulée knew, would be an experiment worth pursuing for this concept car.
“We wanted to question the limits of pigment technology in order to have the highest level of saturation possible,” he explains. “We learned that if we went further, the paint would collapse. It’s literally physically impossible to go further at this point in time in terms of technology.”
Jaguar
In its final form, the satin qualities of the paint accentuate the body’s architecture with its form-enhancing hue. The long hood, blocky front end, fastback profile, windowless liftgate, uber-modern interior, and 23‑inch alloy wheels are all strong statements, enhanced by that super-saturated color palette.
Final thoughts
Jaguar has taken a lot of heat over its ad campaign and Type 00 design. Think about this, though: when is the last time you heard a lot of people talking about Jaguar with this kind of passion? Love it or hate it, the new Jaguar is getting people to think about it again, and that’s a good thing. It’s no small feat for a British brand to start getting a little edgier, so we’ll be watching with interest.