In times like these, show cars are no longer mere attention-grabbers. To succeed, concepts need to be design exercises with a message—and the greener, the better. The Jaguar C-X75 (concept, experimental, celebrating the brand’s seventy-fi fth anniversary) meets this description with a refreshingly bold and remarkably different approach. The radically dynamic and amazingly frugal two-seater employs a pair of diesel-fueled turbo generators acting as range extenders for the battery-powered electric motors. The claimed benefi t is ultrahigh performance with the kind of fuel economy, emissions, and driving range that not even subcompact hybrids can achieve today. In addition, the C-X75 is a true innovator in terms of style and materials. Will it go into production? Probably not. But it does incorporate more elements that are here to stay I than most of its comparatively conventional counterparts on the catwalk. The brief given the C-X75 project team was to create a “design-led, sustainable, high-performance eco sports car” for the Paris show. What Jaguar management did not want was a relatively straightforward V-8 hybrid like the Porsche 918 or an EV like the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-cell and the Audi R8 E-tron, and it certainly didn’t want another frugal-through-sacrifi ce compromise like the early-1990s Jaguar XJ220, which deserved a V-12 but got a twin-turbo V-6 instead.
