The Jaguar Kensington concept car became an Italian, Korean sedan

How does that work with concept cars? They are created by the brand design department, along the lines of ‘look what we can do’, or ‘look what we can do if those lazy engineers didn’t say it’s technically impossible’, or ‘yeah, we don’t have anything new. for a while and we still have to keep those guys busy with their hard glasses and sneakers under their suits. Sometimes external agencies are also hired, then you get something like ‘we wish we could do this ourselves, but the good designers were gone or too expensive’.

But there is also another community. Take for example this concept car from 1990, which started as a Jaguar and ended up as a Daewoo, that wonderful footnote of the ’90s. Admit it, you thought it looked odd, but it doesn’t and again, no, it doesn’t fit Jaguar.

You have to admire the courage, because even though it had all the badges and was also presented as a Jaguar, this luxury model was put together in 1990 by the Italian design house Italdesign (how long did it take them to come up with that name? ) and displayed at the motor shows of Geneva and Birmingham. It’s like camping on the lawn in front of someone’s office until they offer you a job.

Things were not looking good for Jaguar during Kensington

Jaguar was in a conservative design period at this time, which would last until 2009, when the X351 was hot on the heels of the fading hope of an electric replacement.

But the way Jaguar has stumbled over the past two decades shows that the problems weren’t just in the design department. The best thing about the Kensington is that it sits on the chassis of the Jaguar XJ12 Series III, a luxury yacht from. an old stamp that was sold between 1979 and 1993. Italdesign has only bought one, with the 5.3 V12 and all.

Of course, the designers and engineers of the famous design house knew what to do with the device: the front became longer, the rear was shorter and the roof a little higher, to give the car a completely new look for the 90s color that it was. it has started. However, all in all, the design was still conservative – right, because it was in the thirties that Jaguar was completely modern.

Kensington goes into production, but not as Jaguar

We have no answer as to why Kensington never went into production; because Jaguar just ignored Italdesign. No reply, no Christmas card, no reply to the Facebook message if there had been any at the time – nothing. That was possible, after all they hadn’t asked for anything.

At Browns Lane everyone just went on quietly with what they were doing. The next XJ, in 1994, looked like the old one, but with a few new features. Italdesign decided to hand the design over to Daewoo, who was pleased with it, called it Leganza and still had a hard time with it. It can turn…