For those of you eagerly waiting for the station wagon versions of both the Jaguar XE and XF to come out, Jaguar head of design Ian Callum has bad news. The Jaguar design chief recently indicated at a Jaguar F-Pace launch event that it is likely for JLR not to launch any station wagons in the future as demand for the more spacious body style is falling in Europe.
Jaguar wasn’t big on wagons to begin with, only offering a wagon version of the 2004 X-Type and the 2012 Jaguar XF. Both models now know successors in the form of the XE and XF but there will not be any estate versions joining the sedans.
Jaguar’s main competitors, German automakers Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz do offer estate variants of most of their cars. That however does not seem to trigger a will from Jaguar’s side to get in on the action. Callum explains that it’s only natural for German automakers to do so, as Germany is Europe’s largest market for station wagons. The fact that Great Britain comes in second as a popular market for station wagons still doesn’t make it worth the risk. According to analyst IHS Automotive, British citizens are still not to keen on buying estate cars and prefer the good old-fashioned saloon.
Now that the Jaguar F-Pace has officially launched, Jaguar adjust their focus to the ever growing SUV segment. Station wagons are pretty much non-existent in large car markets like the U.S. and China, while it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what kind of car does sell.
Therefore design boss Ian Callum thinks they hit a home run with the introduction of the new F-Pace, saying that this might just become the brand’s absolute bestseller. However before it really acquires that cash cow status, the F-Pace still needs to outsell the XJ sedan and well-aged X-Type that has been consigned to the company’s history books.
