Jaguar has spent the past few years doing something few established car manufacturers would dare attempt: effectively starting again.
Technology has changed, China has reshaped the competitive landscape and Jaguar’s traditional audience was ageing. More importantly, the brand could not continue drifting without a clearer commercial role within JLR. Managing Director Rawdon Glover’s argument is that evolutionary change would not have been enough. Jaguar needed a total rethink.
The result is the Type 01, a 5.2-metre-long electric four-door GT designed to move Jaguar back towards lower volumes, higher prices and, crucially, cars bought through desire rather than necessity.
That last part certainly works.
Jaguar could have produced a modern interpretation of the XJS, borrowing its dramatic proportions and buttresses, or mined 90 years of history for familiar design cues. Instead, the designers deliberately avoided creating a restomod of Jaguar’s past.
The production car looks remarkably close to the Type 00 concept. It measures 5,235 mm long but just 1,403 mm tall, with a short front overhang, vast bonnet, extended rear and 23-inch wheels as standard. Jaguar points out that the 898 mm distance between the front axle and front door accounts for 17% of the car’s total length, almost identical proportionally to the E-Type.
In person, it really does look like nothing else.
Whether that is entirely complimentary will depend on your perspective. According to Glover, customer clinics produced more very low scores than usual, but also more nines and tens. That feels entirely appropriate.
Some elements are genuinely extraordinary. The huge aluminium rear quarter, known internally as the “Impossible Panel”, is produced through a complex six-stage pressing process. The point at which the roof, glass and quarter panel meet is remarkable to inspect closely.
Other details are harder to love. There is no rear window, so the Type 01 relies on a camera system. Its roof-mounted hardware sits within a substantial pod which, to my eyes, looks awkward against the otherwise extremely clean surfacing. The horizontal strikethrough graphics are also prominent and carry slightly Genesis-esque overtones.
The interior is more immediately convincing.
It feels like a concept car that has somehow escaped into production. A central spine divides the cabin into four individual spaces, while a 24-inch OLED display dominates the dashboard. A secondary seven-inch touchscreen handles frequently accessed functions, with another fitted in the rear. The conventional rear-view mirror is replaced by a digital display mounted within the full-width Panoramic Soundbar.
There are no conventional front door speaker grilles either, helping the cabin retain its minimalist appearance.
I suspect the interior will enjoy broader appeal than the exterior, although there are compromises. Physical controls are conspicuous by their absence, so how intuitive the infotainment proves in everyday use remains to be seen. Front headroom also feels somewhat claustrophobic beneath that dramatic roofline.
Rear access is worse. The substantial sill requires passengers to step across a considerable structure, and even climbing into the front demands some effort. Jaguar has created spaces within the underfloor battery for the seats and rear footwells to preserve the exceptionally low profile, but those proportions inevitably come with a cost.
Technically, however, Type 01 is deeply serious.
Its bespoke JEA architecture supports a tri-motor powertrain comprising one front motor and two rear units, producing up to approximately 1,016 hp and 1,365 Nm through rear-biased all-wheel drive and intelligent torque vectoring. Jaguar claims 0–100 km/h in 3.2 seconds and 100–180 km/h in just 4.0 seconds.
A usable 118 kWh battery and 850-volt electrical architecture deliver a projected WLTP range of up to 720 km. At a 350 kW charger, Jaguar says as much as 321 km of range can be added in 13 minutes.
Jaguar insists performance alone is not enough. The brief was to create something with refinement, engagement and deep reserves of power rather than another brutally fast EV that feels like driving a laptop. There is 50:50 weight distribution, rear-biased propulsion, all-wheel steering, switchable-volume air springs and twin-valve active dampers.
It also occupies a rather unusual position in the market. At €165,000 in Germany, the Type 01 enters territory populated by high-performance luxury EVs such as the Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron GT and Lotus Emeya, yet its scale, design and positioning push it towards something more extravagant. It remains well below the ultra-luxury world of the Rolls-Royce Spectre, leaving surprisingly little that directly mirrors Jaguar’s combination of size, price and intent.
Whether it also drives like a Jaguar remains the unanswered question. This was a static preview, not a drive.
Orders will open in early 2027, with first customer deliveries expected during the second half of the year.
For now, though, Jaguar has unquestionably delivered the irrationality Glover believes a luxury car needs. The Type 01 is enormous, extravagant, deeply unconventional and likely to divide opinion violently.
After years spent struggling for relevance, being impossible to ignore seems like a very good place for Jaguar to start.
