Remember this? Jag wants another go
Rumours have been swirling the internet for a while that Jaguar is once again mulling the possibility of a 3-series rival. Now, though, the rumours have some credibility, with Jaguar's new global brand director behind them.
"We need different models. We need lower-priced models," said Adrian Hallmark, speaking with US car magazine Autoweek.
And that means a model below the XF - probably a saloon - to compete against the BMW 3 series, Audi A4 and Merceeds C-class. "We need to play in that world," says Hallmark. "Jaguar needs a small sports car for image and a sedan for volume. We have to do both. Whether we do one, two or three body styles, we can still decide. But we have to be in the lower price."
"We are at the beginning of that process, four-plus years before we see the first launch."
It's certainly an intriguing prospect, but we can't help feeling that we've been here before. The original idea behind the X Type was to create a car to take on BMW, Mercedes and Audi in their compact executive heartlands.
It was a fine idea in principle but, as a general rule, the profit margins on a car get smaller as you increase volume, so you need to make big sales to make big money. And the Germans - particularly BMW - have a stranglehold on the compact executive market, making it hard to make significant inroads.
It's also a stranglehold that has, since the X Type first appeared a decade ago, got noticeably stronger. So while we applaud Jaguar's rumoured plans in principle - the Big Cat had better be damn sure it knows where its profit margins are coming from.
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