Jaguar's C-X75 concept car wowed visitors to the Paris Motor Show. The gas-turbine hybrid sports car looked sleek and exciting under the spotlights, despite owing something visual to the XJ13 Le Mans racing prototype of 1966 -- a car no longer quite as modern as tomorrow itself.
But the C-X75, the work of Jaguar's Design Director Ian Callum, is right up to date in the styling department. That's quite important, because it must provide a footing for the next stage of Jaguar design, says Callum.
"The nice thing I like about the show car, from a design point of view, is that it acts as a catalyst; it takes you to the next level of thought process so when you come to do the next real car, you've already gone through that stage," Callum told Australian motoring journalists attending the Paris show.
"If I can just mention the RD6 and the R-Coupe, they really helped in that respect, because if we hadn't done the RD6, the XF would have looked like the R-Coupe... and I'm glad it doesn't."
Callum's colleague, Jaguar MD Mike O'Driscoll shares the same view and said that Jaguar's products, during its retro period, had become "caricatures" of the brand heritage. That includes the retro-looking R-Coupe.
"We lost our way for 20 years... there was an overt focus on luxury... We became caricatures in many ways. We were building cars that looked like previous Jaguars. And I think over the last few years what Ian's done -- and the rest of the team has done -- is create a new breed of cars that are sporting and fast again, and go back to our roots; what made Jaguar Jaguar all those years ago."
So Jaguar's retro period is in the past -- in the best possible sense -- as local PR man Mark Eedle told the Carsales Network during the local launch of the XJ flagship recently. However, if the C-X75 is the beginning of new design language for Jaguar, what production car will it be applied to first?
The XE sports car is already more or less in the works, based on an earlier concept car, so if the C-X75 bears any influence on a production Jaguar, it's likely to be the new (sub-XF) small car announced by Tata Motors chief executive Carl-Peter Forster three months ago. Certainly both O'Driscoll and Callum spoke of the new small car -- in very vague terms.
"There's a place for a small car," admitted Callum, on one proviso. "We do the equivalent in a smaller vehicle of what we do in the other ones... it's got to be sporty."
That suggests the new 'sub-XF' model will be designed along lines similar to those of BMW's 3 Series, with styling cues from the C-X75; a very different type of car from the X-Type, in other words.
"It would make a whole lot of sense for us to build a smaller sports sedan at some stage... For us to add... a smaller sports sedan positioned below XF would make all the sense in the world, wouldn't it?" said O'Driscoll.
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