So you have a globally famous brand of six nameplates that saw its sales just creep over 100,000 units in 2020 - admittedly a spectacularly difficult year. This problem is complex. 

Your two saloon models achieved combined sales of around 28,000 and half of those look to have been in China. The Jaguar E-Pace and Jaguar F-Pace suffered big sales declines in 2020 but are at least sibling cars to Land Rover and Range Rover models. But two SUVs do not add up to a viable brand.

Moreover, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) bosses have already announced that the product development budget will be shrunk in the future, making investment in new Jaguar models even harder to justify. On top of that, you have a dealer network that has invested in expensive new showrooms and probably has expectations of a wide-ranging offering, at least as big as today’s 13-model JLR line-up.

Will the new JLR chief executive sink hundreds of millions into another round of Jaguar saloon models when the current two have sold so poorly? And if Jaguar isn’t mostly about saloons, what exactly is it for? 

An all-electric brand could have been an idea, but the admirable Jaguar I-Pace shifted only around 17,000 units in a year when EV sales jumped – another great Jaguar selling in volumes that are frustrating small.

1 Jaguar i pace 2019 lt hero front

Here’s another issue. JLR’s main Solihull plant is probably at capacity, especially with the new MLA-based Range Rovers on the way. Halewood might now have room for the E-Pace to be relocated from Austria, so where, and how, could you build new Jaguars in guaranteed profit-making or - at least break-even - volumes? 

So here’s an idea recently suggested to me by an auto industry consultant. Keeping Jaguar alive while keeping investment to a minimum would mean a partnership. And where better than Alfa Romeo