Of all the cars I had the privilege to work on at Jaguar, I have a favourite. Not the F-Type, although it was very satisfying, or the car that broke the traditional Jaguar mould, the XF, but the I-Pace. Yes, an SUV, of sorts.
The guys at Land Rover Design had been asked to look at creating an electric car under the engineering leadership of Wolfgang Ziebart, an ex-BMW engineer who the then JLR CEO Ralf Speth had brought in. Ziebart had far greater knowledge of electric cars than anyone else in our business at the time, so I suspect Ralf‘s decision, as it turned out, was strategic.
The team at Land Rover had worked out a few ideas, but Ziebart was concerned that the package didn’t work to his expectations. The cars had long bonnets and didn’t utilise the space efficiently.
