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In Reply to: Disagree...(m) posted by MikeP on March 18, 2002 at 09:55:24:
Having traded a BMW 330Ci on my X-Type, I disagree with your "Look like a Jaguar, drive like a BMW" philosophy. I really liked the styling of the BMW, but the reason I traded was because for me, the BMW was too harsh in terms of ride and steering kick-back. A car does not have to mimic a BMW to be considered a performance/luxury car. While the 3 Series, especially with sport suspension, might be able to achieve better numbers on the skid pad, in real world driving it beats you to death on bad roads. For me the X-Type allows you to reach your destination in a more relaxed fashion. I would hate to see Jaguar change its ride characteristics just to match BMW's road test figures. In my mind, if someone likes BMW's driving dynamics, buy the real thing.
Mike
Two points:
1) The Jaguar brand has traditionally been associated with high performance AND a certain unique style, so it is not an either-or proposition. Jaguarness is not just about looks, and being true to the Jaguar tradition means delivering both.
2) BMW is the leading brand in this market category. That means, from a marketing perspective, real market share growth can only come at the expense of BMW. To get a BMW 3er driver to choose a Jaguar X-Type for his/her next car means you have to offer a clear advantage - a style vs performance trade-off doesn't do that. Increased style without compromising performance does. "Looks like a Jag, drives like a Beemer" is a recipe for market success. I agree that "Looks like a Beemer, drives like a Beemer" is not - they might as well buy real Beemer as an imitiation one. However, "Looks like a Jag, drives like an Audi" is conceding too much of the customer base to BMW - maybe you'll steal market share from Audi but not BMW.
When we, the customers, buy a car and especially in this category(sport/luxury segment). We mainly look for these three things. That's what i looked for anyway with safety as a no brainer in this class.
1. look/style
2. handling/ride quality
3. preformance
I think most people would agree that the Jag is better in the look/style compartment, while the BMW has better preformance. People who have driven the car would also agree that they both are great handling cars with a slight edge to the Jag for a more comfortable ride. In order to really take the cake, the Jag needs better numbers on the track. When it was time for me to buy, the numbers weren't that important to me as it might to some. I was frankly not that disappointed in that sense. To be better on the track also, just means a lot lot more x-type on the road, thus killing the exclusiveness factor.
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