Why Sell Cars When You Can Sell an Agenda?

By
eric
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63
2219
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There was a time – it was a long time ago, it seems – when car companies were in the business of designing and selling cars. They worked to make the cars they designed appealing as something more than just appliances.

Jaguar was among the leaders, once upon a time.

It just took the lead – in a very different direction. You may have already seen it. Jaguar’s Copy Nothing ad campaign. It doesn’t feature a single Jaguar. Which begs the question:

What is Jaguar trying to sell?

Well, it looks like what whoever was behind the opening montage for the summer Olympics in France a few months back was trying to sell. That also had nothing to do with the Olympics but much to do with mocking Jesus and the Last Supper. Which – at the time – begged the question:

Why do that?

Well, for the same reason that Jaguar is doing it now. The company that once designed and sold cars that were so beautiful it didn’t matter that they didn’t always run very well (it was said a Jaguar looks better on a lift than most cars look on the road) no longer cares much about cars, having committed to manufacturing battery powered devices going forward. This “commitment” can be seen as a commitment to androgyny, one device being interchangeable with any other device.

The identity of a device comes down to what it is called – much the same as a man who calls himself a woman has assumed an identity. But without underlying reality.

In the case of androgynous cars, there is very little need for more than a few identities – that is, brands – because  of the fundamental sameness. Of course, the idea seems to be that – just like the Alphabet People insist – there can be a limitless number of identities and that there will be a market for all of them, too.

What you just heard was the sound of Jaguar (and other would-be device peddlers) whistling past the graveyard.

A “Jaguar” that is just another Tesla with a different identity is not a Jaguar. It is a device trying to be another device. Tesla at least has an authentic identity in that the brand is synonymous with devices. That is what people who buy a Tesla want.

A device.

To understand the distinction between a Jaguar and a device, take a look at a ’60s E-Type and then take a look at a Model X or any other model Tesla sells. Take a look under the hood of a Jag equipped with a V12 and then take a look at a Tesla’s “frunk.” What you see – and don’t – is all the difference.

Jaguar no longer makes cars like the E-Type or the XJs that looked just as good and maybe even better thanTawny Kitaen did back in the ’80s, when she cavorted with them on MTV. And Jaguar no longer makes or sells the magnificently Jaguar engines it used to sell, either.

Like so many other brands that have lost their identity, Jaguar made the mistake of shifting from selling beautiful cars – sedans and coupes – to selling crossovers, which are inherently appliances. It is difficult to make an appliance beautiful because form does follow function when the driving parameters are how many cubic feet of cargo space are there behind the second row and does it have a third row?

Jaguar’s crossovers are by no means ugly. But they aren’t beautiful  – works of art – as the E-Type and XJ were and will always be. They lack the kind of beauty that makes up for other things, such as practicality.

And even reliability.

For exactly the same reason a man will indulge an exceptionally beautiful woman.

Today’s Jags are also already well down the road to being the same as everything else in another way. Most new Jaguar crossovers come standard with 2.0 liter turbocharged four cylinder engines, just like most other crossovers – including crossovers that cost a third less than what a Jaguar-branded crossover costs.

This sameness is a consequence of compliance.

Jaguar – like every other car company (most of them now crossover companies) – didn’t fight when they might have won the fight. Instead of spending money of ad campaigns explaining to people why it was becoming impossible to sell magnificent in-line sixes and even more magnificent V12s money was spent on designing compliance engines, of which the 2.0 liter turbo four is the archetype. There is a reason why literally every brand that once sold its brand-specific engines now sells the Universal Engine, a  2.0 liter turbocharged four. It is the same reason, in its essence, why almost everyone wore a “mask.”

Because they were told to. Because they complied.

Behold the ugly results.

Why buy a Jaguar-branded crossover with a 2.0 liter four when you can buy a same-shaped crossover from another brand with a 2.0 liter four for a third or less the cost? This question seems to never have occurred to the people running Jaguar now.

Beauty sells. And sameness costs.

“The car,” said Sir William Lyons, the founder of Jaguar, “is the closest thing we will ever create to something that is alive.” Jaguar created many cars that were so alive it was easy to imagine them leaping.  

As opposed to what we’re seeing now.

Live Vivid, everyone!

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  2. The Flop Before it Doesn’t Sell
  3. How to “Sell” an Electric Car . . .
  4. The Successful Truck Ford Doesn’t Want to Sell You
  5. Why Are There No New Cars (Almost)?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

63 COMMENTS

  4. Another Eurotard EeeVee maker bites the dust:

    ‘It was supposed to be the poster child of Europe’s electric car future. Instead, it filed for bankruptcy this week, a poetic end to a company which has become synonymous with Europe’s “green” debacle.

    ‘For Swedish startup Northvolt AB, the route to collapse started in June when BMW canceled a multi-billion order. Northvolt scrambled to keep the financing flowing, but as Germany’s car industry fell deeper into an historic crisis, precipitated by a flood of cheap Chinese EV imports in the past three years, orders dried up.

    By the time the last emergency plan failed, investors who had poured in $10 billion discovered only $30 million cash was left.

    Northvolt filed for bankruptcy protection in the US on Thursday. The following day, co-founder and CEO Peter Carlsson resigned and warned the European Union risks falling behind on green projects.

    https://tinyurl.com/3manbh3z

    Like Kamala Harris, drinker of electric Kool-Aid Peter Carlsson doesn’t understand why he lost. There is no such thing as ‘falling behind‘ on green projects — only writing them off, like a coyote gnawing its leg off to escape a trap, and moving on to socially useful, productive investments.

    Just hook yourself up to an EeeVee battery, Peter, and throw the switch. Maybe you’ll attain enlightenment as 400 volts DC rips through the synapses of your shriveled squirrel brain: ‘I was an EeeVee airhead. DUH!‘

  5. Their motto used to be, ‘Unmistakably. Jaguar.’

    It meant something … it was a beautiful automobile … it showed ‘design’ as one of the most important aspects of its being … 

    In the ’80s, we had the UJM … the Universal Japanese Motorcycles … now we’ve got the UC … the Universal Car … and it sucks …

  6. It’s all part of the Road to Serfdom, otherwise known as ‘communism’.
    In East Germany, Trabants sold not because they were attractive, reliable or efficient vehicles.
    No, they sold because that’s all that there was to be bought.
    And you had to wait for many years for the privilege, too. Plus be a good communist to qualify for a place in the line.
    The current trend is exactly the same.
    You will buy a device, because that’s all there will be to buy.
    And if you can’t afford it, then you can always walk.
    Because walking will be perfectly sufficient to get around your 15-minute city anyway.
    And it is good for both you and ‘da environment’.
    Comrades.

  7. I’m 51 now, so I was in grade school in the early 1980’s. One of my friend’s mom’s daily drove a Jaguar XJ6 like this one.
    https://www.classic.com/veh/1980-jaguar-xj6-javln4ac317256-peVEye4/
    Don’t know if it was the 6 or 12, guessing it was the 12. Even then it was a huge standout in the parking lot at the school. Even over the Cadillac Deville that I got to ride in the carpool (remember when people did that too?) or the Chrysler Town and Country woody station wagon my mom drove.

    At the time minivans were starting to make inroads into the family car market, which lead to the boring SUV’s and crossover most families end up driving today.

  8. Watching the Panthers/Chiefs’ game from Charlotte. Coming out of a break they showed video from the Charlotte Auto Show and some of the cars (opening shot was of a Miura). The overhead wide shot revealed there were more cars than attendees.

    We’re in the fourth quarter of the Fourth Turning.

  10. Jaguar is a victim of society, which is itself a victim of the “There’ll be no fun here” commies. Even if a car company is run by people who like cars and driving them, the market is shrinking. Porsche sold out decades ago chasing the fleeting buyer with SUVs and 4-doors of mixed VW parts. Ferrari and Lamborghini are hanging in there but outside the few sports ball people who want and can afford them there’s no middle managers or C-suite guys who are interested enough to buy fine cars like Jags or Mercedes or even actual Caddys and Lincolns.

    • This is true, Joey –

      And I blame the usual suspect – government. The original Porsche 911 was not an unaffordable exotic, as it is today. It was a light, simple sports car. No reason – other than government compliance pressures – that such cars could be available again.

  11. First car 53 Studebaker 2 dr. coupe.
    Second car a 57 Cadillac, 2 dr. pink in color (of course)
    Third car a 64 Jag XKE.
    Fourth car 68 Mustang with Cobra engine 289 with three deuces.
    Current car a 1998 Oldsmobile 4dr.

    Go figure.

  12. Someone said….only 10% of car owners love cars, are enthusiasts…

    Now many of that 10% won’t buy any new car….most of the new cars have been ruined by government regulations…too big, too heavy, ugly, over computerized, defective, unreliable, very expensive to buy and repair, full of self driving and spyware software….no emotion, almost no sound, a sanitised, isolated, dead, driving experience….and the EV’s are far worse….

    Jaguar’s used to be bought by car lover’s…not anymore….

    With those buyers gone the manufacturers concentrate on the car haters….who see a car as an appliance to go from A to B…..who only want huge SUV’s to carry around all their junk….

    Huge over weight SUV’s you can’t see out off….so the morons crash into you while they are texting on their slave tracking device….

    • Nothing post-Budweiser is mentioned in her LinkedIn profile. However, her brother is a federal prosecutor.

      And her maiden name is Gordon which means there’s a good chance I’m very very very very very distantly related (ugh), otherwise I’d say being an @sshole clearly runs in the family. (Then again there are plenty of people out there who think I’m an @sshole, so there you go).

  15. It’s not just cars although they’re a big part. It’s the entirety of society. Cleanliness,,, buildings,,, highway design etc. During my younger years it was ‘fun’ to go shopping with the wife. Not only was there many businesses to visit along with many, many products but one would see all the different cars on the road. As kids we used to name the different cars as they passed. Jaguar was one of the most beautiful. Movie stars would show off their favorites. Today they want a big price with little bang.

    Most shopping businesses have closed up shop. I knew it was over when the largest catalog store in the world, Sears, closed up here. Most buildings are now little rectangles stuck in open malls. Climate controlled malls are closing as many of today’s generations find them symbols of waste and ugly capitalism. Amazon has replaced malls. If you actually find what your looking for at a retail outlet they’ll have only one and one only. They’ll smile and say “I’ll order that for you” like you’re some idiot that cannot order it yourself.
    Cleanliness,,, being well dressed is another piece of historical society. A CLEAN bathroom or any bathroom today is extremely rare. Most stores now brag about basic shopping where there is few shelves, few products and most products are in cardboard boxes. They have ripped up any carpeting and tile favoring brushed concrete. Floor managers keeping the sales personnel in line are gone. Today everyone is a floor manager. Where people working these stores used to make a living and raise families today they barely make enough to keep themselves fed. Fine restaurants and live music are replaced with to-go boxes and poisonous foods. Taking a bus or flying used to be fun, now standing in line with shoes in hand for a bodily search. Women and children get extra special treatment from the demented pedo corpgov staff. If you want a meal you prepay at the ticket counter and hope it is served at least warm. Paying requires a credit card or some other means allowing corpgov to follow you. Hell, just getting to your destination without something breaking or falling off or a dying crew mwmber from a mandatory clot shot is a miracle in today’s woke work environment.

    Going to a hospital with a broke arm used to cost a couple hundred,,, now a couple thousand to ten thousand at many hospitals and if you don’t have “insurance” the skies the limit.

    Compared to 50 years ago today is a dystopian nightmare. There is zero fun. If your 12 year old child walks to the store unaccompanied you could be charged with child neglect. Complaining your daughter was raped by a transgender could get you tossed in jail. Make a wrong comment about a certain religion will get you fired or incarcerated for a hate crime. Soon becoming a federal crime. Not signing a traffic citation might get the shit kicked out of ya by our boys in blue!

    It’s no surprise the auto industry has followed in the same footsteps as other industries. No fun,,, no extras. Just buy what we offer and don’t complain. Most will soon be out of business sitting at a coffee shop wondering what the hell happened. Back in the day, any engineer proposing that new Jag crossover would have been run out of the building.

    Worse! This no class society is just beginning.

  16. You’re absolutely right about old Jags, Eric. I’ve parted out a number of rusty ones for their magnificent modular front and rear suspensions. I saved one of the 4.2 twin cam sixes, it sits on a pallet in the barn just looking good. Someday it may settle into a rat rod roadster where it can be admired under an open hood. An XKE roadster on wires has always been my dream car (that and a Mercedes SSKL, but come on…).

  17. Why Sell Cars When You Can Sell an Agenda EeeVees?

    A frayed-collar British journo bemoans the hair-shirt agonies of EeeVee ownership:

    ‘The first thing I learnt during 11,000 miles in the Mach-E was that it isn’t a “proper” Mustang. Secondly, if you regularly cover high mileage in an EV, you need to travel when everyone else isn’t to avoid queuing at chargers.

    ‘To eke out the range I travel everywhere with the heater off, which currently demands a substantial coat, hat and gloves. I’m writing to Santa for thick socks this Christmas.

    ‘“So, how much does it cost to run?” me mum asked, ever the mathematician. I grabbed some paper.

    While I once had to pay a whopping £1.12 per kWh at a Shell Recharge station, in general fast charging averages at between 85 and 90p per kWh. On a long motorway journey, the Ford averages between 2.6 and 2.8 miles per kWh. Using the more generous figures in both cases, the Ford is costing at least 30p per mile for the electricity alone.

    “And what about your Honda?” she continued. My scrap of paper was getting crowded, but at similar speeds my Civic Type R will return about 34 miles per gallon, which means that the fuel cost per mile is about 16p. She gave me a hard stare.

    “Is it worth it?”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/hybrid-electric-cars/high-mileage-electric-car-usage-expensive-ford-mustang/

    Silly boy. You’re too much of a tosser to even definitely answer the question. Now don your mittens and dunce cap, and get along.

    • This silly journalist writes about “fast charging” as though there were such a thing. He’s either not very observant, or he’s been so heavily indoctrinated that he actually believes that fast chargers exist.

    • I’d say it serves him right; let him ‘enjoy’ his ‘modern planet-saving’ vehicle!

      Mind you, stating the cost of running an EV is never complete without looking at the entire cost of ownership.

      Which of course includes the difference between the buy and sell prices. Also known as depreciation.

      Given that used EV prices are falling faster than Joe Biden trying to climb down a few stairs, the actual cost per mile is many, many times higher than any ICE.

      Even with all the subsidies.

      Luckily for them, the virtue-signaling liberals who mostly own these things tend to be way richer than the average Joe Sixpack. Not any smarter, mind you; despite their ‘superior education’.

  20. Then”agenda” is failing. That is why some automakers are begging trump to keep the ev scam (tax credits, fuel economy scam) going.

    A day of reckoning is coming for the regulators, automakers, and eco religious nuts.

    Jaguar will likely not survive. Many will follow them to the grave. (Except Toyota and Ford who at least separated their ev and ice section).

  21. Why sell cars when you can sell an agenda? Because the communists have captured the “means of production,” which enables them to use the wealth created by capitalism to create an artificial reality.

    This is what Marx was talking about. An auto company is an institution of wealth and power. When the communists capture it they can use the wealth and power and institutional weight for their own purposes. If it fails to continue to create wealth by actually selling cars, it can be bailed out by the government, because it is more important to subsidize the trannies and freaks and women and blacks who “work” there than it is to actually manufacture a salable product. It then becomes a de facto appendage of the government.

    People need to understand that we have lived through a slow-motion communist revolution in the West. it was not a violent Bolshevik revolution because there was no monarchy to overthrow, but it was a revolution nonetheless.

    • “People need to understand that we have lived through a slow-motion communist revolution in the West.”

      Yup.

      2020 should have made it clear that most of your friends, and even family have bought in to the madness and will snitch to the AGW’s if you don’t comply with their demands.

  22. I can remember when a Jaguar was something special. A Jag stood out because it looked and sounded unique—You could spot a Jag with its distinctive grill and body style, and hear its distinctive V12 or I6.

    Now, a Jaguar is nothing special. It looks and sounds like every other car on the road. And with Jaguar’s notoriously poor reliability, you’re better off with a Toyota, Honda, or Subaru, which is at least half the price and lasts twice as long.

    In fact, have you ever noticed that there are very few ads for Toyota, Honda, or Subaru, but plenty for Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, Ford, Chevy, and Dodge?

  23. Fags and soybois need to drive too. Maybe getting ~1% of the population to buy their vehicles will be an increase in sales. Look at how lesbians made Subaru a household name in the 80s and 90s. 🙂

    Obviously the marketing department has taken over Jaguar.

  24. ” Of course, the idea seems to be that – just like the Alphabet People insist – there can be a limitless number of identities ”

    That used to be called schizophrenia.

    I didn’t watch the ad even tho it was all in the alt media a few days ago. Personally, I could care less if they Bud Light themselves. I don’t drink alcohol, so I didn’t care about Bud Light’s self-immolation. Nor do I fancy Jaguars so I’m indifferent towards their demise.

  25. And not so long ago, OK 60 years ago. Songs were written about cars with titles like: Little GTO, 409, Camaro, Little Deuce Coupe and probably many others that I can’t remember.

    Could you imagine a song called Plaid about someone charging their Tesla and going racing? For some reason I can’t. The bastards took all the fun out of cars and now they’re less fun than using an Amazon branded coffee grinder.

    • I blame NASCAR. When they standardized the vehicles and froze time the separation of racing and the sales floor was complete. Before that you could see a Charger race a Nova, then go to the dealer and buy one. Most of the cars on the road today could probably be tuned up well enough to race at NASCAR speeds (and finish the race), but it won’t happen.

      And don’t look to any other motorsports either. F1 and drag racing use purpose built machines too. Nice for winning races, but it doesn’t convert into sales on Monday.

      IMSA, rally and motocross are still pretty much (heavily) modified stock. But you don’t see those races every weekend on broadcast TV. At least not in the US. Fact is, if you want performance you’re probably building it yourself, and racing it with your buddies on weekends. That there’s nothing exciting in the showroom is intentional. The masses don’t care anymore.

      • Even F1 when Mclaren or Ferrari or Mercedes or indeed Jaguar really cared about it because it would sell cars by selling loyalty. Same in Indy or NASCAR and NHRA (you could get into a bar fight over Chevy vs MOPAR vs Ford). Ford vs Ferrari in LeMans? That was genuinely personal amongst real car guys.

      • “…Son, youre gonna drive me drinkin’ if you don’t stop drivin’ that hot rod Lincoln.”

        Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

    • Hi Landru,
      The song I remember most has the line ‘she was having fun, fun, fun till her daddy took the T-Bird away’. Can’t remember the exact title but it was by the Beach Boys.
      I think the leftists are the reiteration of the Puritans, fun is definitely not allowed, especially for the serfs. What a miserable outlook on life.

      • The song was called “Fun, Fun, Fun”, not surprisingly. The Beach Boys wrote the music of fun fun fun California, with their odes to cars and surfing. California used to be a fun place to live. Too bad that the communists took it over. Sometimes I ask myself why I still live here . . .

  26. ‘Copy nothing.‘ — Jaguar

    Actually, Jaguar copied all the ephemeral memes of diversity, wokeness, and androgynous fashion. It’s self-parody: mindless conformism inverted into iconoclasm.

    Mick Jagger beat them to the punch fifty-one freaking years ago, in a gender-ambiguous pose with lipstick and a veil on the cover of Goats Head Soup.

    https://tinyurl.com/muk843r9

    Jaguar owes him a royalty. Stop copying, plagiarists.

  27. Jaguar’s Copy Nothing ad campaign.

    They should have called the campaign “Manufacture Nothing”, as that’s the logical consequence of JaGUar (sic) going out of business. The absence of cars in the ad from a brand that’s recently decided to discontinue all of their current models tells us this is where they’re headed.

  28. My stepdad had an XJ12 for a while. It was quite a magnificent machine! They had been watering down their designs for years before they even started the SUV thing though. When I saw a Jaguar SUV for the first time, I could hardly believe it. Same thing with Porsche!

    Just like Audi but at least Audi still has very nice looking sedans and wagons. But when they started pushing those awful Q5s, I never thought anyone would go for them. Now it seems that most people that own an Audi have one of those ugly shits. They are just the most un-Audi thing that Audi has ever done to itself.

    Well now, these ugly designs pretty much do define these car manufacturers because there’s more of those damn SUVs than anything else.

    OBTW… pretty much universally, in places like Telegram, the company is now known as FAGUAR!

    • Jaguar,like every company started watering down their designs beginning in the mid 90s. Airbags began the process.

      The XJ 12 was a magnificent machine. I remmber my parents friend bringing his by every sunday before dinner.

      As a kid, i always look forward to seeing it.

  29. Upon first seeing this Jaguar ad I thought it was for some androgynous cosmetic or perfume. Although in this day and age why is anyone trying to be “attractive”? I thought beauty and a personal appearance that was superior to another was now “hate”.

    Not being familiar with Ms. Kitaen I did a googull search. Her Wikipedia entry could well serve as a living metaphor for Jaguar. A once beautiful life ending in a tragic demise.

    “Behold the ugly results.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawny_Kitaen

    • You clearly weren’t 16 in 1987. I was a punk and would have been as likely to buy a Whitesnake record as I would have worn a popped collar. But Tawny Kitaen, yup.

      • I was 21 in 1987 and grew up through the “Metal Years” and MTV’s Headbangers Ball – all the hot girls were into that scene. I don’t remember seeing many hot punk girls, I thought scene was all dudes ;).

        • I was a 90s punk and we eventually got our share of really nice looking punk rock gals. Short plaid skirts everywhere. Problem was later on in the 2000s, rock against bush became the punk rock thing to do, and in order to do that, you had to vote for John Kerry. Something felt off about that to me so I checked out of the scene.

          Fun fact – if you were into the 2008 Ron Paul campaign there was a nice lady (also very beautiful) who wrote a song called the “Ron Paul Revolution Song” or something like that. She is currently the lead singer for a punk/ska outfit named “The Interrupters”.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhKlu9PXyVo

  30. By and large, the West no longer knows how to create beautiful things. Our movies, our buildings, our artwork, our sculptures, our homes, our cars are ugly. And our people are purposefully mutilating themselves to look unattractive with their tattoos, their earrings, their noserings, their purple hair, their weight, their clothing, their androgyny.

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