Professor McPoser Gerry McGovern, the Jaguar Land Rover Chief Creative Officer, has admitted Jaguars look rubbish. McGovern has had plenty of time to make Jaguars look appealing, after all, he has been a key part of the JLR design department since 2006. One has to ask the question, what on earth has he been doing all this time? To be fair to McGovern (we are unaccustomed to being fair to anyone from Jaguar Land Rover) he never said Jaguars under his design tenure look rubbish.

During a recent media interview, Professor McPoser said:

“I’m savoring the thought of helping my Jaguar colleagues to bring Jaguar back to the position it deserves. It’s a unique brand with incredible pedigree and a lot of potential,”

“If it could be developed in a way that freed it from some of the constraints it has had in the past, I think it could be wonderful again.”

We don’t actually know what role McGovern has played in the Jaguar design strategy. The Coventry native is primarily responsible for Land Rover. Former Jaguar design boss Ian Callum oversaw the design language of current generation Jaguars. McGovern is, in effect, throwing shade at his erstwhile colleague which shows a contemptuous personality trait. Or we could be reading this incorrectly.

But the real problem with Jaguar isn’t the design language it’s the lack of sales, reliability, quality, a shoe-string engineering budget, massive debt.