Jaguar Won’t Make A Hatchback, For Now

2017 Jaguar XE (Credit: © Jaguar)

Forget all those rumors that Jaguar is about to release a hot hatch and rock everyone’s world. The Brits have killed the idea, telling Aussie car site The Motor Report that the so-called Jag XD or any other compact model won’t be coming to market before 2020.

During the interview, Matthew Wiesner, who’s the managing director for Jaguar Australia, acknowledged that the brand has some glaring gaps in its product lineup. Many luxury automakers have been churning out compact and even subcompact vehicles, satisfying a healthy demand for those kinds of cars.

A compact model would take the fight to the Teutonic arch nemesis of Jaguar, with Mercedes selling the A-Class in markets outside of North America, Audi racking up sales with the A3, and BMW doing quite well promoting the 1 Series.

Wiesner hinted that with the next product cycle, Jaguar will likely fill in some of its product lineup gaps. That could mean a compact model, maybe a couple. Likely this is the company sticking its toe in the water to see if creating such vehicles will be well-received and profitable. It certainly doesn’t want a repeat of the X-Type, a car that Jaguar probably wishes everyone would collectively forget ever existed.

Instead of another train-wreck vehicle, Wiesner wants to assure everyone that a future compact vehicle would live up to the standards of the Jaguar brand. That might include the check engine light illuminating several times a year, along with a great interior and solid driving dynamics. Oh, and it’d have to look great, maybe not like the F-Type, but still.

This means that for now, the XE will remain the smallest cat in the Jaguar stable. As a company, Jaguar Land Rover has been talking big about expanding its product offerings in an effort to capture more worldwide market share. Considering that the United States is the second-largest market in the world and a big consumer of luxury vehicles, the XD or whatever it’ll be called should be coming stateside when it does become a reality.