Gerry McGovern, 69, the chief creative officer, was said to have been “escorted out of the office”. The industry publication Autocar is reporting that he was asked to leave the firm on Monday.
A spokesperson for JLR declined to comment. McGovern could not be reached for comment.
D’ye think it was because he gave his password to the hackers?
Just making sure he didn’t copy nothing.
He probably got to keep the Thunderbirds videos.
I would think it’s more because he oversaw the development of a weird car that looked nothing like a Jag and tried to sell it to people via an ad with no car but dozens of sullen transes, Africans, Chinese etc.
The chief exec should resign too, of course.
I don’t think Jag is salvageable anyway – my dad had them in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, and they were shite all the way through.
I tried to convince him to go Mercedes (or perhaps Lexus) but he never did.
tried to sell it to people via an ad with no car but dozens of sullen transes, Africans, Chinese etc.
Indeed.In car ads one’s supposed to want to be the people associated with the car… That’s like trying to sell Nikes with a cripple in a wheelchair.
Ok now what
I dunno, I had two XJRs before leaving the UK. They were sensational machines (and beautiful IMHO)…
I have, as I’ve mentioned before, two modern Jaguars – a 2020 XE and (now) a 2024 XF. Excellent to drive, and rather beautiful. Even if I wished to splash the $$ and if it were available, I have absolutely no interest in a disgustingly expensive short-range exceedingly ugly electric machine
Either you were lucky or my dad was unlucky, but his all had problems – electrics, rain in through the sun roof etc etc. Plus they were remarkably small inside I thought for the size of the car.
From the linked article:
ah fair dos
He studied at Lanchester Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art
Mmm… All the memorable “great” car designs were done by engineers. They assembled the power unit, running gear etc according to use, then wrapped a bodyshell around them to conform to the aerodynamics of the time. Function driving design. Where design has driven function, their mostly forgettable.
Look at the two cars in the photos. The SS is a symphony in metal. You know exactly what each bit of it does. The 00? It’s an electric car so what does the front 1/3 of it do? It looks like a pill box on wheels. Why? In 50 year’s time it won’t even look quaint.
Not sure all great car designers were engineers. Possibly in the early days, but post-war it had become a separate expertise.
Michelotti started off as a coachbuilder, Pininfarina started off in his brother’s body shop.
Moreover, Gandini did start off as an engineer, and he just designed lots of cheese wedges on wheels.
Yep, W.O. Bentley, Alec Issigonis, Malcolm Sayer, Ferdinand Porsche, Marcello Gandini spring to mind. Brilliant engineers.
Strange firm. They make the wonderful Land Rover but make it so badly that its reliability figures are a nightmare.
As they say in Oz: if you want to go into the Outback drive a Land Rover. If you want to come back drive a Toyota.
The early Landy series were very reliable beasts. And they were fixable in the field. But when you start putting carpets & leather seats in an off road vehicle, you’ve lost the plot. They tried to turn an ORV into a luxury street car. You’d do better going in the other direction
The Toyota Land Cruiser that we owned years ago was not Spartan – it was comfortable; indeed rather well equipped by the standard of the time.
I think one of the primary concerns was later LR’s having engines with a belt driven camshaft. All it takes is one small stone getting past the cover and the engine – and, potentially your life – is finished. I understand that at least one fully enclosed chain drive conversion kit was developed to mitigate this risk.
The Jaguar rebrand was held up by some as an example of firms pushing politically correct advertising.
It wasn’t so much the Benetton-coloured, gender-questioning, Remain-voting people in the advert. It was the fact it aired in 2025.
2024 was a watershed year across the white world. Did you notice the Guardian crying about the “harsher and more hostile political climate” in Sweden the other day? Everyone and your Nan has woken up, and they’re angry. We were told the anti-white eruptions of 2020 were a “reckoning”, but the real reckoning is now coming. Biggest story they’re not covering. Anyway.
To decide, in 2025, to rebrand as the car for people who have pronouns in their emails was a very courageous decision. The Bud Light fiasco was merely a marketing side project that backfired, Jaguar bet the entire future of their company on this off-putting nonsense.
This is now thought to have come to an end partly because of the success of fashion retailer American Eagle, which saw its shares soar in value after featuring an advert with the actress Sydney Sweeney.
Jaguar should’ve bet on tits. Everyone likes tits.
Jaguar should’ve bet on tits
Maybe, with tits and a dick on a stick, Jaguar were trying to appeal to both markets simultaneously.
Like lots of businesses, Jaguar seems to have had a panic because most of its customers were in their 40s and 50s. It didn’t seem to occur to them that these people were not always in their 40s and 50s. So they marketed a car for which they planned to charge £100k-plus to purple-haired 20somethings, a demographic well known for having tuppence to spend on motors.
Appealing to the wealthy gayer isn’t a bad idea, I have a gay mate who owns a top-end Range Rover, but wealthy middle-aged gays have no more truck with blokes in frocks and meaningless adspeak than the rest of us.
but wealthy middle-aged gays have no more truck with blokes in frocks and meaningless adspeak than the rest of us
Sex sells, but Jaguar’s rebrand was a challenging wank.
I’m sure the wealthy gay punter who might be tempted to buy a pricey performance car has similar automotive tastes to the rest of us. Gays – even the chatty, catty ones – place a premium on masculinity, not whatever this is
That’s a Little Britain spoof of a Pet Shop Boys video, shirley.
What it looks like is the inhabitants of a dystopian city in a low-budget 1970s sci-fi movie. The colour scheme, the shape of the costumes, and the clumsy attempts to be strange and different, all end up looking like something cheap and dated. It wasn’t even “progressive” because it was released when “woke” had passed its peak, so it was already behind the curve. It just fails on every level, which really takes some doing.
There’s an interesting interview in Esquire with Gerry McGovern, from Feb. He describes his work as “marketing genius”. Reading between the lines, he was a talented exec whose ego got overinflated by previous success and arrived at struggling Jaguar ready to indulge all his worst, pretentious auteur instincts.
It didn’t fail because it was woke, but because it was laughable as you say. He was going for Derelicté but it was just trash.
However, he did confirm that pissing off all of Jag’s existing customers was intentional. The interview is titled “Jag Man Must Die“. Hilariously, the plan was to deliberately drive off all those Nigel Farage types who buy Jags, in favour of a hip, cool, young, but surprisingly wealthy demographic that McGovern assumed would be rushing the forecourts.
Unfortunately, poor old Jaguar have been “behind the curve” for an awful long time now.
Whoever made the decision to do away with all combustion-engined Jaguars and produce only EVs really does need his collar felt.
The problem with Jag is that they ran out of time.
People grow up around cars and there are desirable brands when they are teenagers and lots of people seem to stick with this in their mind. What do spies drive, or cops, or the flashiest people they know? So car brands can end up being cool to some 13 year old and 35 years later he achieves his ambition and owns a Jag. Never mind that it’s now a Mondeo in drag.
The average kid who grew up thinking Jags were awesome was born before 1965. People after that are about Mercs or Porsches. So those people are on pensions, probably not changing the car often or getting something cheap. The people in their 40s and 50s who have made it want Mercs.
There’s nothing special about most cars now. A Toyota will get you around safely and comfortably. If you want a few more toys, a bit more space and nicer upholstery, get a Lexus.
The collector car market is going to crash because of this.
People who couldn’t get a Hemi ‘Cuda in 1970 go to Barrett-Jackson and pay $3M for one. Big bucks to satisfy childhood dreams. In a few short years, people will be asking, “What’s a Hemi ‘Cuda?” There will be a generational shift in childhood desires. 1960’s desires will die with the Boomers.
Hemi ‘Cuda – nah, not even then and definitely not now. My 60s dream was a Facel Vega.
Excellent choice. But when you go, will anyone know what it was?
Interestingly, in the early Facel Vegas, you could get a Hemi.
(Had to do some research. I remembered they had Chrysler engines, but I didn’t think they had Hemis. In fact, late production did not. 383 and 413 “wedge.” But early models in the 50s did. I’m sure it was because Chrysler didn’t make Hemis from 1958 to 1964.)
Saw a Facel Vega on an episode of “Bangers and Cash” earlier this year. Vaguely remembered it from my childhood (1960’s).
Strange, watching the auctions of ‘vintage’ cars – some go for a fair price and others don’t make reserve. Same with bikes.
Perhaps all those still alive who want a vintage vehicle have one by now and the others who may have wanted one are dead.
Great looking thing, it was reckoned to be France’s answer to our Jensen and Bristol. Unfortunately, owing to the pillar-less design and rear hinged “suicide” back doors, the FV had many shortcomings in the handling department and the doors would fly open if one indulged in a little cornering. They might have been the fore-runner of the Boris Bendy Bus.
This happened with music memorabilia. Were you growing up with The Beatles? You care a lot about the Beatles.
Not me. I was a teenager in the 60s and the Beatles were just meh… as far as i was concerned. Stones, Animals, Kinks, Who, Yardbirds were what I was into.
As for Jags, that was an ambition for me then – mark VIII I think, but when I had enough readies to indulge, I had lost the urge. i did run a Rover SD1 V8 for a while, but that had its issues.
My “growing-up music” was Jean Michelle Jarre and Jean-Jacques Perrey. When there’s some background music on the telly and I say something like “hey, that’s EVA” I get puzzled stares.
the Beatles were just meh… as far as i was concerned. Stones, Animals, Kinks, Who, Yardbirds were what I was into.
Seems to be a popular opinion. One still hears tracks by those bands played. Bands in pubs do their versions. When do you ever hear the Beatles?
My theory is that the Beatles were a show band. A variety act. That’s how they started. Show bands very rarely last. The music’s right for the time but fades. The other bands you mentioned were primarily musicians. They wanted to play the blues.* Whether they got paid for doing it was a secondary consideration.It’s the music itself that endures.
*I can remember seeing Clapton playing acoustic in a cellar club In Long Acre to an audience of about a dozen on a wet Sunday afternoon, sitting in with some other guys. One of them my g/f’s friend’s brother. Why we were there. Entrance half a crown. That was ’68, so he was still with Cream & famous for a value of famous.
With you entirely in your choice of music. In the London motor trade of the 60s, Jaguar were always perceived to be built down to a price. The big saloons, like the Mk 8s, 9s and 10s couldn’t be given away then and the Mk 2s were almost solely the preserve of either the filth, the villains or members of the local golf club.
Jag’s choice to go all electric seems fatal.
Nah.. you can build extremely high-performance luxury cars with pure electric or hybrid.
It’s the Wankery around it, and thus being associated with said Wankery when owning it, that makes people reach for the legendary 10″ Pole.
A Grand Touring car must be able to tour. EVs can’t.
Can’t think of a single luxury car maker that isn’t staring down oblivion because of EVs. If you’re going to buy an EV you’re probably not really in the luxury car market, you’re in the laptop market. They’re all “good enough” and the driving experience on EVs is similar (it’s an electric motor so not as easy to differentiate the feel of driving a Porsche from a Proton) so most people don’t attach a premium on legacy marques such as Jaguar when they’re powered by batteries.
Is why you see people driving brands you’ve previously never heard of, like Jaecoo. We’re old enough to remember when Skodas and Ladas were the butt of jokes because they were shite – but it’s difficult to buy a shite car these days. They’re all pretty good, and even cheapo EVs accelerate like the clappers. There used to be a hierarchy of car quality, but now you’re just paying for the badge. What’s the point, when a Hyundai also gives you heated seats and all the other toys, and no longer looks like an OAP’s car?
For as long as people are transported by privately owned motor carriages there will be marketed differentiation and top luxury versions. Even if we’re all (mostly) forced into some form of self-driving car pool system there’ll still be comfort level options, and our masters will have their Zils.
If current luxury makers can’t navigate the transition their brands will be purchased. There will probably always be a Jaguar, even if it’s just a badge engineered Wang Fuk.
I think you’re probably right. A car’s a very visible status item. Only way to explain BMW’s. If they didn’t exist you’d have to invent them.
That’s the thing. Zoomers have a different idea of luxury. They’re not buying Boomer luxury brands such as Harley Davidson, Gibson guitars, or Jaguar. Those brands are dying because nobody under the age of 50 thinks they’re cool.
The Boomer economy will never come back, because the younger generations have been fucked with debt. The average age of a first time house buyer keeps creeping up, not a great sign for businesses hoping to sell young people £100,000 cars to people with student loan debts.
Luxury to a young person in 2025 is not having to share a house with strangers.
Jaguar’s best advert was Inspector Morse driving a Mk2. AFAIK it didn’t cost them a penny. (In the early books, it was a Lancia – Colin Dexter changed it to fit in with the TV series.)
Well, some might say Simon Temlar. But that was the problem?
That’s a Volvo P1800
Was it? Bloody glasses.
If you decide to bin a senior executive you get them out on the spot, cancel all their access codes and black bag their personal stuff.
Standard procedure, nothing to get aereated about.
I saw a vast electric Roller in town the other day. Size of a Chieftain tank. Utterly fucking hideous; enough to make a grown man weep at how the marque has been trashed. Not just a wanker’s car, an utter tasteless cunt’s car.
Jag is learning the hard way that you don’t mess with Terry-Thomas. Or Leslie Phillips. Or David Niven.