A noise was heard rippling across the universe last week, a sound as if millions of crappy automotive journalist voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. It was the sound of legendary Jaguar designer Ian Callum proclaiming the sexy Jag wagon dead, and the world was worse off for it. But now, he says he was misquoted.
Jaguar makes, arguably, the sexiest wagons in the world. They’re long and low, preserving the traditional Jaguar style motif of “a cat ready to pounce” better than any of its sedans do. Which is why we were incredibly sad when Automotive News quoted Callum as saying that the Jaguar wagon would be no more:
Jaguar is unlikely to offer station wagon versions of its new sedan models because of falling demand for the body style in Europe.
“The [wagon] market is massively shrinking. I’m very sad about it but it’s a very difficult market to justify,” Jaguar’s design chief Ian Callum said.
And okay, I can see how that quote is a little ambiguous. Lots of markets are difficult to justify, but that hasn’t stopped Volkswagen from building another Bugatti. But the headline on the Auto News story wasn’t ambiguous at all, blaring “Jaguar will not build wagons, design boss says.”
But now Callum is saying he’s been misquoted:
More wagons for everyone, hooray! Sort of! Because if we’re being pedantic – and why shouldn’t we, this is the Internet, after all – this is actually still a bit sad, and still a bit ambiguous. The XE is a handsome car already, and it would probably look even better as a wagon. And Callum isn’t explicitly saying that Jaguar will continue to make wagons for new generations of cars as they come out.
At its simplest, Callum is simply saying that there will be no XE wagon. And that’s it. He’s not not saying that the wagon is dead.
Nick Gibbs, the reporter from Auto News, has already said he’s amending his original story. But since Callum is still kinda-sorta still being ambiguous, we’ve also reached out to him for further clarification.