NO Jaguar SUV says Ian Callum

NO Jaguar SUV says Ian Callum

Ever since Jaguar’s Brand Director Adrian Hallmark said that Jaguar needed a crossover there’s been much speculation (from Cars UK just as much as elsewhere, we confess) that a Jaguar SUV is in the planning, despite Land Rover’s pre-eminence in the field.

But it looks like we should have listened more carefully to Adrian Hallmark, who actually said Jaguar “…need a crossover and we need to stop being a saloon-based company.” We all leapt on the ‘stop being a saloon-based company’ bit as confirmation an SUV is planned when Adrian actually meant a crossover and not a full-blown SUV.

That’s been confirmed by Jaguar’s design boss, Ian Callum, talking at the Geneva Motor Show to Australia’s Car Advice. Ian said that “…an SUV as such is out of the question. We have a sister company that produces the best SUVs in the world.”

Ian went on to say that “…an SUV is too utilitarian for Jaguar, but maybe there are some grey areas in between we could investigate”.

When asked if he’d already penned a crossover he smiled and said ” I couldn’t comment on that”.

So it looks like the question we asked when we had what looked like a Jaguar SUV or Crossover spy shot a few weeks ago – is this a Jaguar XF ‘Allroad’ – is the route Jaguar are likely to go.

But that’s not likely to happen until the next generation XF arrives in a couple of years with a new 4WD platform. Then, a rufty-tufty 4WD Jaguar XF Allroad (with whatever Jaguar’s take on ‘Allroad’ turns out to be) is probably a given.

At least we can now stop speculating on a Jaguar SUV.

Source: Car Advice