What on earth is Jaguar thinking?

Along with Aston Martin and Rolls Royce, Jaguar is, for most people, one of the great British blue chip motoring brands. When Inspector Morse drove around the not-so-mean streets of Oxford in his burgundy Jaguar Mark II, the implicit association between the terribly English detective and the quintessentially stylish car was one that lingered on in viewers’ minds far beyond the show. Jaguar has always been that rare company that has conveyed an innate sense of style and class throughout its century-long existence. So why, exactly, have they decided to torpedo their hard-won reputation in such a perplexingly unforced fashion?

Jaguar have made such a strange series of mistakes and missteps that I had to double-check that it wasn’t April Fool’s Day. Not since Apple decided to commit hara-kiri earlier this year with a similarly baffling and imbecilic iPad Pro advertisement has a company come out with such a truly dismal idea.