Jaguar: Official cars for Wimbledon Tennis

Tim Henman, Laura Schwab (Jaguar) & Jose Mourhino at Wimbledon with the new Jaguar XE

Jaguar has announced it is to be the official supplier of cars to the All England Lawn Tennis Association for the Wimbledon Tournament. It will supply XE, XF and XJ models.

If you had to make a list of things that are quintessentially English (or British), Wimbledon (the tennis tournament, rather than the Common) would be up there with the Queen, Red Buses, Black Taxis, Warm Beer and…Jaguar.

That’s clearly what Jaguar think, as they’ve teamed up with the All England Lawn Tennis Association to be the official supplier of cars for Wimbledon.

Jaguar are going to be using all of their saloon range – XE, XF, XF Sportbrake and XJ – to shuttle players and officials round from hotel and/or rented palace (depending on status) to the Club in a 170-strong fleet, but they may have a bit of a dilemma about who gets ferried in what.

Clearly, Jaguar are going to want their new XE front and centre, but the high-profile players will expect to be chauffeured around in a LWB XJ, not shoved in the back of Jaguar’s 3-Series.

But, dilemmas about who’s seen with which Jaguar apart, it’s a good opportunity for Jaguar to get a chunk of high-profile media coverage and underline their ‘Britishness’, still a key part of the Jaguar ‘Brand’.

Tim Henman, now an All England Committee member, was rolled out for the announcement at Wimbledon, as was Jaguar ambassador José Mourinho. Henman said:

When you talk about Wimbledon being a quintessential tournament and part of the British calendar, you can talk about Jaguar being a quintessentially, luxury British brand. I think they complement each other well.

This year’s Wimbledon Championships runs from 29 June to 12 July, by which time we hope Jaguar will have built enough new XFs to go round.