What's Wrong With This Picture: Jaguar's 11-Year Itch Edition
Slightly over 11 years ago, Jaguar set the car world’s heart a-flutter with the sleek, stunning F-Type concept. Shortly thereafter they said they’d build it, and relentless hype (including a totally unconvincing C&D “ First Drive Review” featuring no actual driving impressions) followed. As the years dragged on, it soon became clear that Jaguar would not be building the achingly gorgeous sub-XK roadster (a decision that Robert Farago called “a shocking miscalculation“). But now, with mules already prowling the British countryside, a new baby Jag roadster concept is coming to the Frankfurt Auto Show… and Jaguar tells Autocar it will be a “precursor” to the coming production model. As a big fan of Ian Callum’s work, I’m sure it will look absolutely delicious… but if this somehow turns out to be another F-Type-style tease, Jaguar will be dead to me forever. [UPDATE: video preview after the jump]
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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isn't Aston Martin all about eating each others siblings? i kinda wonder just how many high performance coupes the world really needs...
At first glance, I thought that this car has already been built and is on the road - it's a Chevy Camaro! At second and third glances, my thoughts progressed to - who cares? this car in many guises is/has already been built. I'll stick with the Camaro, though, with a serious nod to Ford Mustang and a sideways-glance at a Tiburon!
There are lots of pictures of a mule running around at the moment. The car is actually only about 12 months away from launch so I doubt a strongly profitable JLR will pull the plug now on a halo car it badly needs.
Mercury had a concept car a few years back that was called either "new Cougar" or "Mercury Messenger", supposedly to come out in 2011. I think the above sketch looks a lot like this prototype: http://www.newcougar.org/forums/videos-pictures/50038-concept-new-cougar.html Someone at Jaguar likes engine port side vents, so they added them in on the sketch. I wonder if they are really functional? (The majority are not, especially the stick-on kind.) You guys at TTAC did an article showing Mercury's doomed concept vehicle a couple of years ago: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/10/ten-concept-cars-that-woulda-coulda-maybe-even-shoulda/