That Jaguar advert – you know the one I mean – isn’t the only thing about the car maker’s recent rebrand that’s riled folk.
Many have accused the once-proud British company – now under Tata’s Indian ownership – of turning its back on a century of heritage when in 2024 it culled some of its most iconic logos to be replaced with contemporary motifs befitting its daring all-electric era.
Shortly after, it wiped all reference to the past from the website and reset its social media platforms as a blank slate, only stoking the fire of public outrage that had already engulfed.
But those responsible for developing the next generation of all-electric Jaguars refute the claims that the brand is shunning its legacy. Quite the contrary; they’re embracing it.
Matt Becker, the vehicle engineer director poached from Aston Martin to mould JLR’s cars of the future, told me back in December that ‘understanding the DNA of Jaguar’ was a fundamental first phase of the project.
To do so, Becker and his team – including managing director Rawdon Glover – have spent time driving the greatest cars from its bloodline to grasp the essence of a ‘proper Jaguar’. Bottling their characteristics in their brains, the intention is to inject it into the electrified veins of the forthcoming four-door GT.
And I’ve now had the unique opportunity to see if they’ve managed just that.
At JLR’s testing grounds in Gaydon, I too have driven legends from Jaguar’s back catalogue. Then – for the first time – took to the wheel of a prototype version of the new £120,000 EV to see if it has inherited that Jaguar spirit…
Can Jaguar really capture the DNA of its iconic classics in a 2.6-tonne EV that costs north of £120,000? The Daily Mail and This is Money has driven a near-production prototype to find out
The past cars influencing its EV future
Rawdon Glover has taken plenty of flack for his role in the last two – controversy -laden – years at the helm of Jaguar.
But within moments of hearing him speak, you quickly realise herein lies a man absolutely convinced that a bold direction is the one that Jaguar needs to take if it is to thrive as it did decades before.
The intention: to transport Jaguar and its fortunes back to a time when it was most successful – when it offered exclusivity and desirability to match the likes of Ferrari and Porsche.
And he’s quick to reference vehicles in its history that broke away from convention to great reward.
He points to the Series 1 E-Type – the one Enzo Ferrari called ‘the most beautiful car ever made’ at its unveiling at the 1961 Geneva Motor Show – and its spiritual successor, the 1975 XJS; models that reshaped how cars of their era could look.
Jaguar’s engineering department selected iconic cars from the company’s past in a bid to recreate their charm. Right to left: E-Type, XK120, XJS, XJC and the new all-electric GT
Jaguar has made its intention clear. It wants the brand to recapture its most successful era – when it offered exclusivity and desirability to match the likes of Ferrari and Porsche
It was with this remit that JLR around 2021 challenged its in-house design studio to pen the silhouette of the model to spearhead its ambitious electric transformation half a decade later.
With the team split into three groups, a competition was created to sketch out how a Jaguar should look, irrespective of the powertrain it uses.
The winning entry: a cab-rear body (meaning the cabin is positioned further back than is convention), expansive bonnet, low roofline and large monolithic panels – a vision that became reality in the 2024 Type 00 Concept.
And it is these attributes that also lie concealed beneath the zebra-like skin cloaking the five-metre-long car I’m about to drive for the first time.
While the concept’s continuous roof curvature slopes from windscreen to tail in a fashion reminiscent to the E-Type, you can see the XJS’s influence on the four-door GT.
Still a cab-rear, big-bonneted cruiser, it has more saloon-like C-pillars evocative of its 1970s flagship.
Rawdon concedes its scale and design will undoubtedly be divisive but welcomes the fact it won’t be to all tastes.
Having conducted various focus groups where potential clients were asked to rate its looks, he says the £120k electric GT typically scored ones and tens – and rarely anything in between. Such polarising opinion suggests Jaguar won’t have to try too hard to sell it to those who love it – and won’t need to bother with those who don’t.
The design influence for the four-door electric GT is the 1970s XJS. The EV reflects its cab-rear posture, extended bonnet and C-pillar signature
JLR’s vehicle engineer director Matt Becker tells me the XJ-C (right) – produced from 1975 to 1977 – is the car he’s trying to emulate when fine-tuning the driving character of the EV
The XJ-C yardstick
While the E-Type and XJS might have been the stimulus for the GT’s silhouette, it’s the V12 XJ-C – produced between 1975 and 1977 – that Matt Becker earmarked as the yardstick for how the electric GT should drive.
Its ‘comfort, lightness and deftness’ are the traits he tells me he wanted to reproduce.
And having experienced a selection of the cars from Jag’s heritage fleet, I understand why it’s the benchmark.
After initially driving the Series 3 E-Type (arguably the least demanding generation to drive) and discovering the degree of concentration and gentle persuasion it demands for every journey, the contrasting effortlessness of the XJ-C quickly shines through.
The 5.3-litre fuel-injected 12-cylinder engine delivers lazy wafts of power. The ride is plush and spongy, the steering controls are light and the cockpit is well cocooned for a car produced in the 1970s.
It gently rolls into corners, leaning heavily on its haunches as it clearly communicates that you’ve reached the limit of its cornering physics. But then it casually settles itself into position, like a cat that’s been circling its favourite cushion before curling up into a cozy ball.
These are the characteristics Becker and his team are striving to emulate.
The GT must deliver ‘deep reserves of power and instinctive responses’ but also be ‘agile and rewarding to drive’, all the while delivering comfort customers are expecting from a luxurious grand tourer,’ Matt explains.
Only then, he says, can it be considered a ‘true Jaguar’.
Daily Mail and This is Money motoring editor took to the wheel of one of the electric prototypes to see if it has inherited that Jaguar spirit…
Jaguar has deployed a number of ingenious – and patented – features to ensure the four-door GT is both comfortable and capable. This includes splitting the battery pack under the floor
What it is the electric GT like to drive?
First and foremost, I must point out that the car I drove is still very much a prototype. It is one of 150 built and is still in active service.
In fact, Navid Shamshiri, product character and performance manager at JLR, tells me this mule has just returned from a European jaunt with four engineers taking it across continent – including flat-out on the derestricted German Autobahn – as part of its final assessment phase.
While the ‘hardware’ of the car is 100 per cent production ready, Navid explains the software is only around 70 per cent complete as the team continues to tweak and fine tune ahead of its full reveal later this summer.
It means that while the monumental proportions you see here are reflective of what is going to be bolting up and down the M40 in 2027, my impressions from the driver’s seat are subject to change.
But here’s what it’s like in its current format.
Stepping over the relatively wide door sill and lowering my backside into the chair, it’s already clear this is like no other electric car I’ve driven in the last few years.
The decent into the seat is more pronounced than normal as I plonk my frame into what feels like the guts of the chassis.
This is courtesy of the ingenious move to split the 120kW battery pack in the floor, with the divide providing a structural gateway for the seats to be bolted lower into the chassis.
Doing so means driving position isn’t as elevated as other EVs that perch the glasshouse directly on top of a foundation of battery modules.
This too explains how Jaguar has managed to keep the roof height to a svelte 1.4 metres.
Yet the four-door GT hasn’t given up precious range or performance by carving a wedge out of the battery footprint.
What’s lost in cells has instead been redistributed further forward in the platform – which, again, is a unique construction element devised through clever thinking.
Engineers have positioned the high voltage system ahead of the bulkhead (cabin) courtesy of a patented structural crash protection feature that stops the expansive bonnet from crumpling into the cockpit. It means the battery pack can also be extended closer to the front arches, which will be a feature of all models built on the Jaguar Electric Architecture (JEA).
Such inventiveness unlocks an additional 70 miles of range – taking the grand total to more than 400 miles – and adds an extra 148bhp, I’m told.
At speed, the four-door electric GT pitches onto its loaded side in the same fashion as the 1970s XJ-C I’d driven minutes before
Throttle firmly planted, the GT glides in utter silence in what has to be one of the most enveloped cabins at over 100mph
Seat adjusted and belt fastened, there’s not much to take in from the heavily concealed cabin, with only the digital driver’s display on show – though even this is still not the finished article.
Within moments of pulling away at low speed, I immediately feel the advantage of sitting lower to the ground at the epicentre of the car.
As I peer through the deeply raked windscreen at the expansive mass ahead, it’s easy to forget there isn’t a romping V12 lurking under there. And despite its dimensions, there isn’t even room for a ‘frunk’ (a front trunk, pardon the horrible Americanisation) to bolster luggage space.
The first significant rotation of the steering wheel highlights exactly where I’m positioned within this enormous machine as the car pivots around me like I’m a pin punched right through the yaw centre of this 2.7-tonne [approx] barge.
Pulling onto the entry road that leads to Gaydon’s high-speed bowl, a pressured dab of the throttle provides the first taste of the 1,000bhp at my disposal, which seems excessive, even for an exclusive GT with a six-figure price tag.
This abundance of power is delivered to all four wheels by a single electric motor at the front and a pair at the rear.
Torque vectoring [the distribution of engine power to individual wheels, rather than across an axle across] manages the delivery of horses while also monitoring for any modicum of wheel slip some 1,000 times per second – a necessary procedure to ensure the EV continues to move in its intended forward trajectory.
The active air suspension keeps the car taut but incredibly cushioned, which provides great poise while I’m travelling at speeds well in excess of the motorway limit during my driving stint
As we enter the bowl, Navid urges me to bury the throttle.
Complying with his request, I hear the whine of the inverter elevate as it orders a bulk of torque from the electric motors.
It delivers a wonderfully linear exhalation of thrust as it accelerates with real elegance. It’s in complete contrast to the 1,140bhp Porsche Cayenne Turbo Electric I drove days earlier, which instantly dumps its torque in a nauseating manner.
In the Jaguar’s ‘Comfort’ driving mode – the only one of three I’m authorised to use – the nose of the car lifts prominently as the bulk of the power is issued to the rear axle. It serves the luxurious sensation you get driving half-a-million-pound Rolls-Royces.
Matt tells me this characteristic is purposely tuned into the GT’s Comfort mode. However, wind it up into the Dynamic setting and the software eradicates any body motion to keep the chassis flat and planted.
What is consistent across all three modes is that the power is rear bias (Rain/Ice/Snow mode being the most front bias of them all), with Becker and his team adamant that it should feel like a rear-wheel-drive car but with the safety net of all-wheel drive.
Throttle firmly planted, the GT glides in utter silence in what has to be one of the most enveloped cabins at over 100mph. An active noise cancelling system is still in the tuning phase but when added to the production car – I imagine – will make it incredibly hushed.
The active air suspension keeps the car taut but still beautifully cushioned, which provides great poise while I’m travelling at speeds well in excess of the motorway limit as the car eats miles with unintimidating ease.
Charging into the bowl’s banked corners with some velocity, the body pitches onto the loaded side in the same fashion as the 1970s XJ-C I’d driven minutes before. But there’s not a hint of a loss of traction as the torque vectoring disburses the power to where it’s needed, making the GT feel unwaveringly stable.
The four-door GT authentically reproduces some of the best driving hallmarks of the 1970s XJ-C, from its cossetted cabin, ease of use and luxurious ride comfort
Whether the four-door GT completely captures the Jaguar DNA that Glover and his team are seeking can only be judged in the final product that arrives in a matter of months
Navid redirects me to a different area of the testing grounds specifically designed to calibrate the ride quality on a route reflecting the worst-rutted B-roads in Britain – it’s narrow, pothole-riddled and laden with joins and uneven tarmac.
Yet the GT feels composed throughout, though still very much on the firm side as it communicates every blemish in the surface below without reproducing the harshness in the cockpit.
That’s even the more impressive given the EV rolls on standard-fit 23-inch wheels – which are so big that they account for 55 per cent of the car’s total height – and all-season tyres, which are typically firmer than summer rubber.
Like its XJ-C yardstick, its surprisingly easy and agile when navigating slower manoeuvres, which is aided by its rear-wheel steering that JLR has mastered in other model lines, including the hulking Range Rover.
Does it ‘feel like a Jag’?
It’s clear that many of the GT’s characteristics have intentionally been engineered into the software to recreate the attributes that made previous Jaguar’s great.
It authentically reproduces some of the best driving hallmarks of the XJ-C, from its cossetted cabin, ease of use and luxurious ride comfort.
In fact, Jaguar showed me the graphs detailing the suspension performance of the EV versus its 1970s inspiration – and the two are outrageously close given their half-century void.
Whether the four-door GT completely captures the Jaguar DNA that Glover and his team are seeking can only be judged in the final product that will debut in a matter of months.
But what’s clear today is that the company has built itself an engineering team capable of reproducing character elements of legendary models from its history, despite being underpinned by an entirely different – and inherently heavier – architecture.
Jaguar has confirmed that the yet-named electric four-door GT will be unveiled in September. First deliveries are scheduled for early 2027. But there’s still plenty of work yet to be done…
What’s next for the electric four-door GT?
Jaguar has confirmed that the showroom-ready car will be unveiled in September and first deliveries are due for early 2027.
But before then, there are still major areas that need to be signed off.
This includes its official name, which we’re told will be confirmed in a matter of weeks.
Becker also tells me that there’s work to be done on the sound the EV produces, both inside and out.
The score for the cabin has already been meticulously tuned on a simulator but is yet to be deployed in a prototype to gauge if the soundtrack suits the driving characteristics.
What I do know is that it won’t sound like a spaceship or synthetically reproduce the noise of a combustion engine.