Jaguar’s Type 01 puts the rebrand to the test

For almost two years, Jaguar’s rebrand has been debated. Now there’s a car to talk about.

A rebrand can change the signals a company sends. The product has to make them mean something.

For decades, the leaping Jaguar represented a balance between sportiness and luxury, backed by motorsport heritage. Jaguar hasn’t abandoned its past entirely, but it has moved beyond many of its established codes. The question is whether the new language gives people an equally compelling idea of what Jaguar stands for.

With the Type 01, that shift now has a physical form. I wanted to give the car time to sink in before considering whether this radical departure could become a rather expensive miscalculation.

There’s a difference between making people look at your brand and making them want to be part of it. The first takes a creative idea, while the second requires a product that triggers desire.

The Type 01 certainly has road presence. But the market has changed considerably. EV adoption hasn’t followed every prediction made after Covid, while Chinese manufacturers have reshaped expectations around technology and price. Being different is no longer enough.

The product raises questions, too. From what we’ve seen, the interior leaves room for doubt about space and usability. The reliance on touchscreens also risks making simple functions unnecessarily complicated. Luxury should know the difference between sophistication and complexity.

Personalisation is another concern. For a brand whose ethos is “Copy Nothing”, the apparent limitations in exterior colours and interior materials seem at odds with the promise. If individuality is central to the proposition, customers should have the freedom to make the car feel theirs.

The Tesla Cybertruck offers a useful comparison. Both challenge familiar expectations of what a vehicle should look like. But radical design only works when the product delivers on more than its appearance.

I genuinely want Jaguar to succeed. There’s a lot worth preserving in its ambition, heritage and character. It doesn’t need to recreate the past, but it does need to give people a reason to believe in what comes next.

The Type 01 has plenty to prove. For now, I’m not entirely convinced that form and function are working together as they should.

The road ahead looks bumpy, regardless of how nicely tuned the suspension turns out to be.