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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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.
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?
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.
” 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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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!
A Jaguar SUV makes as much sense as a Range Rover sports car…or a screen door on a submarine!
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
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.