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Jaguar made news of the wrong kind when it released a seemingly gay-themed ad that featured models in brightly colored clothes, but no cars. Not exactly the traditional Jaguar image. The company’s new models–or concept versions of them, anyway–are being unveiled tonight, in Miami. But meanwhile, photos have leaked: Jaguar’s ‘Barbie pink’ electric car leaked online.

It looks pretty good from this angle, if you can get past the pink:

The interior has been redone too, with an oval-shaped steering wheel, among other things.

What is going on here is a complete change in Jaguar’s brand. Its CEO, apparently a lefty who hasn’t heard the news, minces no words:

Rawdon Glover, Jaguar’s managing director, has said that people like Nigel Farage are no longer important to the brand’s vision as it pursues a “completely different audience” to its traditional customers.
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Mr Glover has defended the rebrand, saying criticism of actors in the campaign had featured “vile hatred and intolerance”.

He told the Financial Times: “We need to re-establish our brand and at a completely different price point so we need to act differently.”

When he says “a completely different price point,” he means much more expensive:

It will be priced in excess of £100,000, positioning it as a rival for the Porsche Taycan.

In one way, the cars will resemble traditional Jaguars:

The production car, which recently began road testing, will pack north of 575bhp and have a range of more than 430 miles.

The worst thing about the Jaguar re-brand isn’t the Barbie pink, it is the plan for an all-electric lineup. Sales of EVs are declining worldwide. In my opinion, the electric car is basically an obsolete product. EVs lost out to internal combustion vehicles more than a century ago, and the calculus hasn’t meaningfully changed since then.

Beyond that, Jaguar’s 180 degree change in marketing direction might be unprecedented. The slogan “get woke, go broke” doesn’t always hold. But to openly express contempt for a company’s existing customer base is pretty extreme. I drove Jaguars for 20 years, 11 years with one vehicle and nine years with another. They were great cars. I remember seeing an article, years ago, about a survey of auto owners that correlated cars with political orientation. The left wing was held down by Volvo, if I remember correctly. And what automobile brand was owned by the most conservative drivers? Jaguar. I was proud of it at the time.

So Mr. Glover has a difficult road before him. He needs to sell a lot of cars at £100,000 and up to wealthy young liberals, a demographic not noted for buying cars with 575 hp. And he needs to do this in a market, electric vehicles, that is shrinking rather than growing.

Good luck to Mr. Glover. He is going to need it.