The importance of design

Guardian Unlimited | Economic dispatch | Power steering

It's quite funny watching the UK press moan and groan over the decline of Jaguar, and particularly about its poor sales in the US. Invariably, commentaries focus on price and the impact of a relatively strong pound on what the cars sell for in the US. What these articles never focus on is design - and if UK journalists knew half of what they think they know about the US they'd have a much better idea of what Jaguar's problem really is. Let's take a quick look at the Jaguar range from a North American perspective:

X-Type: looks like a Subaru.
S-Type: looks like a Saturn.

That's a bit of an exaggeration, actually: the S-Type really looks like a Ford Taurus, and let me tell you UK journalists, that is NOT a good thing.

XJ - now that looks like a Jaguar. Shame it's almost at the top of the range.

Back in the 'good' old days, every Jaguar looked like a Jaguar. Now that most of the range are fairly nondescript knockoffs of generic four door cars, no wonder nobody wants to buy them.