Type approval: the new Jaguar has a name
The last thing Jaguar needs is another controversy. And, by confirming the name of its new electric four-door GT, it’s unlikely to get it. Following the Type 00 concept, meet Type 01, the rather vanilla name for the first production car of its much-vaunted new era.
It’s pretty easy to decipher, says Jaguar. ‘0’ is for zero tailpipe emissions; ‘1’, because it’s the first model in a new generation. So Jaguar’s adopted the Polestar approach to model names – but added the ‘Type’ in a nod to the brand equity it turns out the firm does have after all.
By the way, it’s pronounced ‘zero-one’, not ‘oh-one’. We learnt that in passing from MD Rawdon Glover, giving loyalists plenty of opportunity to correct others, Joey from Friends-style.
The Ti consensus is that the name is… fine. Perhaps a bit underwhelming, says Gez Medinger. Dan Prosser agrees, ‘but Jag has never done romantic names, so maybe it’s on brand’. Arguably, it’s more fitting than the other mooted option, XJ. Pick that and you bet there’d have been mutiny from those who care little for Jaguar’s brave new era.
There’s also a bit more logic going into the name than the first Jaguar road car ‘type’, the C-Type. Officially, that was the XK120-C, where ‘C’ stood for ‘competition’. It was the press and public who christened it C-Type (A-Type and B-Type were cylinder heads, not cars). Aided by a Le Mans win, the name stuck, and Jaguar followed it up with D-Type, E-Type, S-Type and, much later, the F-Type (dare we mention the X-Type? Well, Jaguar’s hardly going to).
‘We have reimagined Jaguar for a new era, with inspiration from what has gone before,’ said Glover. ‘The Type 01 name is part of that story – for me, the zero also signifies a complete brand reset, and the ‘1’, our first car for a new chapter, a ‘“one of a kind”.’
At least until Jaguar Type 02 arrives; but there’s a lot riding on this one being a success before we get that far.
Written by
@richardaucock
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