The Bertone Jaguar B99 was amongst the most fascinating concept cars of 2011 Geneva Motor Show. Everybody expected Jaguar to embrace this design with open arms and turn it into a production model. But no! They don’t like it at all.
Speaking to Autonews Adrian Hallmark, Jaguar’s global brand director, points out that Jaguar had nothing to do with the Bertone B99 and it doesn’t hint at any new model by the British brand. With rumors about a BMW 3-Series rival from Jaguar flying around most people thought this car could be the base for the new mid-size Jaguar sedan. If only…!
Jaguar however politely refuses that and says although they like that Jaguar is so interesting that Bertone decided to come up with a concept for it, but “it is just not for us“.
As you know Jaguar has tried very hard to shake off its old design characteristics and replaced all the traditional styling cues with new sort of espresso-look features to present a modern image. They might be afraid that the B99 brings all that back again!
Well, then I may have two suggestions for Bertone. Either offer it to the Chinese who think they can exploit the MG badge with generic-looking saloons, or bring it up with the Aston Martin board, as the next Lagonda. The B99 will need to be up-scaled then. Aston may even decide to retire the Rapide which IMO is just a silly extended version of the DB9.