Ian Callum, Jaguar’s long-time design chief, retired in 2019 and started his eponymous design company soon after. The fledgling brand has embarked on numerous projects since then, including turning the Jaguar C-X75 concept into a street-legal model, and also announced its most ambitious project to date. Named after a whiskey distillery island off Scotland, Skye is the first car Callum has developed from scratch.
We first heard about Skye in late 2023, and the project has made significant progress since then. It has reached the prototype stage, and will make its public debut at the Concours on Savile Row which will open in London on May 22, 2024. The overall proportions have not changed in the past few months, meaning Skye is still difficult to pin down. To a segment of the market. Is it a coupe with SUV-like ground clearance, an SUV with a coupe-like body, or is it a more sophisticated version of the decades-old beach buggy concept? Regardless, it’s sure to turn heads.
Callum has revealed the Skye’s interior ahead of the electric car’s debut. There’s room for four passengers in the 2+2 layout, and the driver faces a three-spoke steering wheel, a tablet-like touchscreen for the infotainment system, and a vertical row of small, round touchscreens in the center stack. The 2+2 design includes a pair of sports seats for the front passengers and a rear seat designed for storage or carrying smaller passengers.
The powertrain is built around a 42-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery that holds enough electricity for about 170 miles of driving range. While this doesn’t qualify the Skye for a ‘long-range’ tag, Callum points out that the available fast charging system charges the pack in less than 10 minutes. The brand quotes a 0-60 mph acceleration time of less than four seconds, but no additional specifications have been announced. However, we do know the dimensions: It’s about 159 inches long, 74.8 inches wide, and weighs 2,535 pounds, which is surprisingly low for an electric car.
For context, the Skye is about a half-foot shorter and an inch wider than a two-door Jeep Wrangler and about 200 pounds heavier than the current-generation Mazda MX-5 Miata. The big tires aren’t just there to look cool: Callum is developing the coupe for serious off-roading.
The order book is already open, and the price ranges from £80,000 to £100,000 depending on options; These numbers respectively represent approximately $101,600 and $127,000 at the current conversion rate. Callum expects “low volume” production numbers and will announce more variants of the Skye later in 2024. Some will focus more on off-road capability, while others will focus on the road.
