Report: Jaguar Fires Design Boss Gerry McGovern UPDATED
Jaguar is really reeling right now.
There was a failed ad campaign -- and that failure led to a marketing agency being axed.
Then, the Type 00 Concept seemed to draw more boos than cheers. Now, Jaguar design chief Gerry McGovern has been reportedly sent packing.
Autocar and Autocar India have reported that McGovern was even escorted out of the office. McGovern was born in Coventry.
We've reached out to Jaguar for comment and will update if we hear back.
Update -- Jaguar reached out with a no comment.
Jaguar Land Rover does have a new CEO -- PB Balaji. Balaji had been with parent company Tata Motors for over a decade before stepping into the JLR CEO role, and he could be looking to make changes as he takes over.
It's hard to tell if this reported move comes from the desires of a new boss to shake things up, or if it's because of Jaguar's recent struggles, or both.
Either way, it looks like the iconic British luxury brand will be looking for a new design boss sooner rather than later. Maybe they can fix Jaguar.
[Image: Jaguar]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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The Jaguar rebrand saga reminds me of "This is not your father's Oldsmobile."
Honorable mention goes to the more recent "That's not a Buick!".
Who knew that when a concept car veers too close to "design study" and too far from reality that would get a designer axed. Heads up to all you new designers out there: when you carve up that bar of soap, it better come out looking like a finished product or they'll wash their hands of you.