It worked for Porsche. Now, another luxury automaker is reaping the rewards of catering to the utility crowd.
Jaguar’s decision to market an SUV raised the ire of purists, but it also turbocharged the brand’s U.S. comeback, Bloomberg reports. The British automaker is now the fastest-growing brand in the U.S., with sales propelled by the new F-Pace SUV and entry-level XE sedan.
Jaguar’s 59 percent increase in vehicle sales since the start of the year outpaces other automakers by far. Volvo, the closest resurgent brand, only saw half of Jag’s sales growth.
“We couldn’t be more tickled,” said Chris Marchand, executive vice president of operations at Jaguar Land Rover North America, told Bloomberg. “Foot traffic in dealerships has more than tripled.”
The F-Pace arrived at dealers in May, and Jaguar has already sold 3,398 of them. During that first sales month, the F-Pace and XE accounted for 58 percent of the brand’s total volume. Clearly, it pays to branch out, but Jaguar’s expanded lineup hasn’t brought it back to past sales glories — at least not yet.
Timothy Cain, TTAC’s resident sales stats guru, says recent product failures skewed the automaker’s comeback story.
“Jaguar sold 61,204 cars, just cars, in 2002,” said Cain. “Then the rapid decline began. We’ve come to assume that Jaguar is a brand that can sell 15,000 vehicles per year in the U.S., so the fact that they can more than double that this year and next is striking. But one would expect that massively increasing the size of your lineup would inflate sales. Still, one shouldn’t ignore one’s prior successes are still a ways off. Jaguar was selling more than 5,000 cars per month in 2002; 3,800 per month in 2004. With F-Pace and XE ramping up, the average over the last three months is around 2,800 U.S. per month.”
When will JLR learn how to design the back of a SUV?
The front looks great! The back looks like a Ford Edge or Mazda CX-9.
They all look like a Ford Edge or Mazda CX-9 from the back.
Which in turn, all goes back to the Subaru Tribecca.
Jaguar does have some momentum, but it’s more than just the F-pace. The F-type and other cars are looking good. Most importantly, Jaguar is beginning to regain some of it’s image. And when you barely sold any cars to start with, even modest gains are impressive.
I do like the F-pace. Seems to have the right size and I like the 380hp supercharged 6. Might have to look at this for an SUV replacement.
How did the sales of Land Rover products compare. Did the F Pace lead to sales they wouldn’t otherwise have? Or, is it just taking Range Rover sales?
A good question…
Off the top it doesn’t look like the F-Pace competes directly with anything from LR/RR. RR Sport costs like 2x the price, Evoque is tiny. Closest thing is the Discovery Sport, which itself is having a hell of a year so far…. doubled its June sales and tripled its YTD sales compared to 2015. F-Pace monthly sales look to be about even with the Discovery Sport so basically JLR is making money hand over fist with these crossovers, as they should:
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2016/07/usa-luxury-suv-crossover-sales-by-model-june-2016.html
If Jags and Land Rovers are sold side by side this is probably as good as it’s gonna get. A smaller Jag CUV would cannibalize the small LR CUVs, and a big Jag CUV would probably get killed by the RR unless they made its focus on-road dynamics. Truthfully/sadly I could see such a vehicle replacing the DOA XJ.
The F-Pace is so superior to the Discovery Sport that it’s not even funny.
Towing capacity will be key to its future success.
Of course, I’m referring to how easily it can be towed. This is a Jaguar that we’re talking about here.
Ha! Flatbed for that one, I’m afraid, and only to a certified Jag dealer.
A third-row seating option will also be available.
The good news is that a full-time mechanic will be included with one of the seats. The bad news is that virtually all of the cargo space will be needed to carry his tools and gear.
Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue… A-y-y-y!
Seeing as 1979 was the big year of disco backlash, I wonder what disco record sales were in 1979 versus 1976.
1979 was the final year of the full sized Town Car as well, and all of them were Collector’s Editions. Auto-lights, wipers, and available early integrated Homelink system!
In my neck of the woods I’ve seen more Jaguars. Maybe it’s part of a BMW backlash: people wanting something different to drive than the ol’ German standbys.
For my next car I was seriously considering a Jaguar XE but the backseat just isn’t going to cut it for the family needs.
And the XF is a considerable price-leap.
I saw an F-Pace on the highway the other day. It’s a nice looking CUV in person; it’s one of the few that actually looks attractive to me.
This goes to show that people want the image of the brand more than they want the pure ideal of the brand. It’s the same reason why Porsche managed to build its current wind off the backs of the Cayenne and Macan.
Kind of. I mean, once you get past the fact that they’re crossovers and not rear or mid-engined sports coupes, the Cayenne and Macan drive remarkably well. They are probably the best-handling, most sporting crossovers in their respective segments. They are the Porsches of crossovers. And in a world where an automaker couldn’t exist on niche cars or would barely get by (see Lotus), it’s important to have the kinds of cars that people buy.
As for Jaguar, that brand has almost completely reinvented its image, and crossovers are part of the package. Jaguar seems to be chasing volume, especially with attractive XE leases that bring in a lot of new customers, and wants a full-lineup of cars.
I have yet to see one of these driving around in the OKC / Edmond metro, even though the dealership claims to be selling them as fast as they come in. Supply must be pretty constrained.
Both in terms of price and design, this looks really good, especially next to the segment leaders, the X3 and Q5, which are getting pretty long-in-the-tooth (of course both Audi and especially BMW are able to offer attractive lease rates, which sways a lot of people). Even the new GLC-Class looks sort of boring and stodgy in comparison.
I’ve seen at least a dozen in the NW Burbs of Chicagoland.
I didn’t realize they’d launched. We saw one (in a hot, hot red, no less!) driving by the San Diego Jag dealership last night. Lot was loaded with XEs, which reflects the comments recently by the TTAC reader currently employed by a Jag dealership about the insane foot traffic increase since that thing dropped.
I’ve only seen a few XEs around here. Maybe they’re too cheap for the discerning San Diegan hyper-conspicious-consumer..? Ghiblis are all over the place, but not so much the Macan (that’s the cheapest Porsche, right?).
Think they’ll get Dudley Moore to help them write ads?
If they get a Quija board, sure.
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=101251
(And “Crazy People” was funny as hell…Volvo…it’s boxy but it’s good…)
Probably makes the Lotus SUV more likely now.
That idea has legs, if Lotus can actually “simplify, then add lightness” to the SUV.
Ariel Nomad kinda makes a Lotus SUV superfluous ;)
I think the Lotus concept is more civilized, street legal and maybe Chinese.
That’s a bit of number cherry picking Tim. 2002 was a particularly good year, as the X Type was introduced that year and it sold very well, going on to become the best selling Jaguar ever.
Through the 80’s and 90’s Jaguar sold about 50,000 car a year worldwide, the F Type, F Pace, XE and new XF seem poised to bring volumes above that on a sustainable level.
I’m in favor of the F-Pace. Prices aren’t ridiculous, it’s got big NA power as standard, and it looks pretty good. It also comes in nice colors.
Have yet to see one IRL, but Jag sales are always sluggish in the Midwest.
A friend has one in metallic British Racing Green. A very nice colour in the sun.
I concur. When I build one online that’s the color I’ve chosen both times.
The prices *look* ridiculous, from what I’m seeing online. The prices can easily run right up against an X5, GLE-Class or even a cheaper Range Rover Sport. I think the dealers are marking them up.
Oh good point – when I built one online it was $48-55k or something. Then I looked at Ebay, and they were all $65-75k.
Yep. I’d rather have an X5 for that money.
Pseudo British accent. The US realtor market must be on the uptick.
They will make an X3/Q3 equivalent and probably a Q7 equivalent as well. If they can leave behind the stigma of reliability and add in new product they should be fine. I don’t know if current generation Jags are any worse than the German brands as far as reliability goes.
Only the wealthy or stupid own an Audi out of warranty and they sell boatloads of them; so Jaguar should have no problem moving the F Pace.
If you noticed, Jaguar went to a new EliteCare warranty model, a complete 5-year, 60K-mile warranty, and I believe routine maintenance is covered during that time, too. That beats anything anyone else is doing. BMW has their worry-free maintenance plan, too, but it only goes to 4 years and 50K miles.
The new warranty isn’t as big a deal for the people buying XJs and F-Types at the top end, but it’s a big deal for the people dipping their toes into the luxury market with the attractively-priced XE, and really this new F-Pace as well.
“Only the wealthy or stupid own an Audi out of warranty and they LEASE boatloads of them…”
Fixed that for you…
“Only the wealthy or stupid own an Audi out of warranty”
Hmmmm. I drive an 11 year old Audi, and I know I’m not wealthy, so….
You mean X1 and Q3, which are both subcompact. The X3 competes with the compact Q5, which is where this F-Pace seems to reside.
The F-Pace almost looks like a sexier, longitude-engined XC60
JLR competes more directly with BMW nowadays.
The BMW X5 probably kicked off the performance SUV trend in 1999, they still owned Land Rover while that vehicle was being developed and launched so there probably was some technology transfer.
Porsche certainly upped the ante with the Cayenne.
I realize that the F-Pace will (likely) be the sales leader for Jaguar, but if it keeps cars like the F-Type on the road, then so be it! There’s a red F-Type that leaves the base every afternoon about the same time I do, and I’ve never once not absolutely drooled on myself each time I’ve seen it. I guess much the same way Porsche has bankrolled lower volume cars with the Cayenne and Macan, so goes Jaguar. So I guess the answer to just about everybody’s sales problems is: SUV/CUV.
I don’t think Land Rover will be worried by the F Pace given that the Discovery Sport is their best selling car globally.