Here's what the bosses of Koenigsegg, Bugatti-Rimac and Singer make of Jaguar's rebrand

2025’s most controversial car moment? It has to be The Jaguar Rebrand. You know the one. Copy nothing. Pink planet, yellow hammer, and a very long concept car. But Bentley’s new EV concept car and the latest Mercedes Hyperscreen haven’t exactly been met with standing ovations either.

While we had Mate Rimac, Christian von Koenigsegg and Rob Dickinson assembled for the latest TG Boss Chat, we asked them for their thoughts on Operation Relaunch Jaguar, and what they might have done differently. Here’s what they reckoned…

Photo: Mark Riccioni

Rob Dickinson, Singer

“You could say they've got the biggest well of inspiration to dip into, or they've got the most problems. Jaguar would defend their rebrand as ‘nobody wanted to buy our cars anymore and we had to do something radical'.

"Now whether you agree with how they did it or not, I would say they had to do something radical for Jaguar. Jaguar should not ignore their leather and wood past, at the same time they have to become something they haven't been before to stay relevant.

"I used to work at Lotus, and the idea to save Lotus was to build 6,000lb electric SUVs. I don't think that's gone very well and – I hate to say it – unless I'm mistaken McLaren are about to make the same mistake with an electric SUV. And I think if McLaren think that their SUV is going to be successful because it's going to be more beautiful than the Lotus, I think that's not going to work for them.

"Lotus were on their knees when Colin Chapman was running the company. You can't make money making cheap sports cars. You can make fabulous cars that we all love, but you can't charge enough money for them, and they're still expensive to make. And Lotus have been trying to be Porsche, I think, for 30 or 40 years.”

Mate Rimac, Bugatti-Rimac

“I have very clear advice. Don't try to do what everyone else is doing. You will not do better screens than the Chinese will. You'll not have a better infotainment system than Tesla. I saw some of the [designs] that will come out by some manufacturers, and I was like, ‘why don't you look at the cars you did in the past?’

"The beautiful thick wood you had in these cars. Everything was metal, this beautiful leather interior, the thick carpets. [Now we have] interiors with a big screen here, big screen there, everything starts with a screen. Everything is piano black, fake grilles.

"There is a market. We are in the 0.001 per cent of the market, but the 1 per cent market or the 5 per cent market is, in my opinion, what Europe should focus on. 95 per cent of watches made are digital, 5 per cent are analogue, but 90 per cent of the profits in industry come from the 5 per cent of analogue watches.

"Europe should be doing that. Britain should be doing that. You will not be better at doing what the Chinese are doing, what Stellantis is doing, what the mass manufacturer is doing. No way. Stick to your heritage, do things differently.”

Christian von Koenigsegg, Koenigsegg

“15 years ago you had the ‘Cayenne’ model, which is also the platform for the Touareg, the Audi Q8, the Urus, the Bentayga. Looking at JLR, of course Land Rover and Range Rover, they're doing great. They are doing fantastic. So you have this struggling Jaguar, [and then a] fantastic Land Rover and Range Rover division that's just flying.

"But for Jaguar, there is this restomods thing which is pretty wild. [The TWR Supercat] First I thought, what is that? And then it kind of grew on me a bit. It's brutalist! It’s a bit M3 or rally car. It's definitely got attitude, right? The attitude a Jaguar would need.”