Jaguar's attempt to woo Generation Z with a Barbie-pink electric vehicle has taken a disastrous turn. The new Jaguar Type 00 concept, dubbed the Design Vision Concept, was leaked online ahead of its official release at Miami Art Week. Per the photos, the $126,519.50 vehicle features a giant bonnet, slatted rectangular grills, and no rear window. The leaping Jaguar logo has vanished from both ends, replaced by a divisive, new round logo.

Jaguar's Rebranding Fiasco: A Pink Disaster

Exterior Design

The "Miami pink" exterior of the vehicle evoked a boxier version of the Corvette from the "Barbie" movie. It also comes in metallic blue, adding to its visual appeal. However, some critics found it to be an eyesore, with one saying, "That @Jaguar concept car is one fugly monstrosity. The switch to electric gave huge potential for a radical redesign to live up to their unimaginative ad campaign, but they had so little imagination that they gave it a huge view-restricting nose to house a non-existent engine."

Despite the online savaging, a few vehicle buffs have praised the Type 00s. "Top Gear" host Rory Reid commented, "Having been massively underwhelmed by XE, XF and XJ (which are only even vaguely interesting with a 5-liter supercharged V8 under the bonnet) … This is the most ‘I would actually look twice at this’ Jag since … forever. I’d even have it in pink for the haters," Reid declared.

Reaction from the Public

Zoomer TikTokkers like Fionnuala didn't exactly feel the electricity with the model. She compared it to Muck, a red digger from the kid’s show "Bob the Builder." "Now you’re telling me Jaguar had all that faff (Brit slang for fuss), all that rebrand, all that nonsense for a car that looks like Muck, and to be honest I’d rather [have] Muck," she declared.

Other unimpressed Zoomers took shots at the rebranding efforts in general. Gearhead Luke Malpas exclaimed in one TikTok clip, "What on Earth is Jaguar thinking? They’ve gone from being a staple of British engineering, creating some of the best cars we’ve seen on the road, to this." Podcaster Jay Anderson wrote on X, "Go woke, you know the rest," while journalist Jordan Schachtel wrote, "Go DEI go absolutely broke. This is a mockery of the Jaguar brand."

Branding and Marketing

Jaguar's chief creative officer, Gerry McGovern, deemed the flamboyant concept car a "taste of things to come" at the Miami convention. The EV-only hot wheels seem to be the latest part of Jaguar's "woke" rebranding campaign to win over Gen Z, which was promoted in a video ad that featured androgynous models in bombastic outfits, including one man wearing a dress and, most notably, no cars anywhere in sight.

However, some critics found the "Copy Nothing" slogan ironic, given that the new EV vehicle seemed to rip off many storied vehicle brands. Canopy Capital Group CEO Eric Golden snarked on X, "Copy nothing except Rolls Royce, Bentley, and then put a Studabaker radiator on the back of the car." Another naysayer scoffed, "Copy nothing? It’s a pink Batmobile," decrying the vehicle’s departure from the brand’s iconic macho mobiles of old.

Consumer Base Concerns

Some accused Jaguar of risking alienating their consumer base by attempting to appeal to people who will never buy their product. Lulu Cheng Meservey, a board member at tech company Shopify, mused on X, "Someone on the Jaguar marketing team has greatly overestimated the size of the ‘vegan barista who wants to roll up to the drum circle in a luxury sports car’ market, I fear." Right-wing British Reclaim Party founder and "political correctness" foe Laurence Fox sniped, "I have a feeling @Jaguar may be about to find out that there are fewer well-off, non-binary, woke lesbians of color than their echo chamber assured them there were."

Critics deemed the rebranding efforts, including the rounded, new logo, a paragon of the "go woke, go broke" saying. The criticisms extended beyond accusations that the model was ugly in pink, highlighting the broader issues with Jaguar's rebranding strategy.