YOur post says it all!! A lot of women do buy cars on their own today. If Jaguar sold a "boutique " car like a Miata, then thousands of women would buy them. A woman would have made certain design refinements to the xkr but would hardly jumped aboard the xkrs or GT design and expect another woman to buy it. Marketing to guys only, is a huge mistake on the part of any manufacturer. And Jaguar has been making that mistake for decades

 

I find very few women who are interested in cars, much less women who are willing to shell out big bucks for a beautiful car. You seem to be the exception that proves the rule!

If Jaguar starts marketing specifically to women, they could be viewed as an effeminate brand, which would have negative impact on their sales as well.

 

Not so sure - Porsche makes the Boxster, which seems quite popular with women, but I don't think anyone considers Porsche effeminate. Same with BMW's Z3. And no-one thinks of Range Rovers as 'girly' but a hell of a lot of women drive them.

Trying to assess the factors that make a car attractive to women in general is just as hard as trying to do it for men in general. My neighbour is no sissy, but he thinks I'm crazy for spending £40k on a car that does 13 MPG (and those are imperial gallons) around London - he owns a VW Polo.

 

You'd be crazy spending £40k on a car that does a lot more than 13 mpg, any cheap runaround will do that.

 

Aston Marin tried it with the Cygnet - admittedly it was "only" £32k, but you could probably option it up nearer to £40k. There's one on sale today for £35k second-hand; bonkers

That's a load of wonga for a Toyota iQ with a nose job… No wonder they canned it after a couple of years

 

Please find me one Porsche Boxster commercial marketing the car specifically to women. (Maybe there is one--I don't know!)

On the other hand, didn't Land Rover have an Evoque Victoria Beckham edition? THAT is marketed toward women.

 

In reality, the marketing of most cars is relatively gender-neutral, at least over here. My point was: you don't necessarily have to market a car towards women (or men) for it to be more attractive to women (or men) - it can be popular in a given market segment because of some 'x-factor' that may not have even been envisaged by its designer/marketer.

I don't think Range Rovers were designed with 'soccer moms' in mind, but having discovered that many women like the size & high-up driving position, JLR would be fools to do anything that turned off that market. Having a special edition that targeted it directly also made sense, but that didn't stop them having the more macho Sport as well.

In the Jag world, if the R-S and GT are too macho, the standard XK and XKR are still there. Hell, a standard 5.0 XK is no slouch, and it's an attractive, comfortable, well-equipped car.

 

I suppose my point was I don't think it's as if Jaguar is missing out on half the market by not marketing specifically to women (as well as men).

 

Mayb Jaguar can use her in a XKR commercial and have an old guy with a walker "photobombing" the commercial. That way jag can cover all its bases!

 

Haha, I think Jaguar has the 70 year old guy demographic covered already!

 

LOL. The weird thing is, there's nothing 'feminine' about the Evoque; it's quite a brutalist design - that photo is kinda "Beauty and The Beast". OK, it's not quite an LM002, but cute it ain't. When designers (presumably mostly male) try to create a car for women, we end up with the Nissan Figaro or Daihatsu Copen. The Evoque and its siblings are proof that being pretty isn't a prerequisite for appealing to the female demographic.

I guess the issue with the R-S, and even more so with the GT, is that it yells "racer", and that image doesn't appeal to many women. For the same reason, you don't see many women in GT-Rs or even 'ricer' hotrods. But the R-S and GT are performance-oriented specials - they're targeted at people who like the 'racer' image. The standard XK and XKR don't have that look, so they have a broader appeal.

On the other hand, with the GT (and to some extent, the R-S), you're not trying to sell in volume. They're trophy cars, to show what the marque can do. But column-inches of coverage of the GT will help shift XFs, and that's what really brings home the bacon.