C-X75 - CAPTURING THE CAT ON FILM

It’s not every day that Jaguar builds a 205 mph concept electric supercar with jet turbine generators, so we knew we were going to need some great photography, writes Richard Agnew, Jaguar’s Head of PR News and Content.

Early on in the development of the C‑X75, we decided to do an old‑style reveal for this year’s Paris motor show. At a press gathering on the eve of the show, we planned to simply drive the car on to the stage and let it be a true jaw‑dropper of a surprise.

But to get the most impact and the most coverage from the reveal, we knew we’d need to offer journalists a wide selection of dramatic images both in photography and video.

With the concept completed by the end of August, it would have been easy to have kept the car in our design studio, given a photographer a couple of days, and come away with plenty of pretty shots.

That's not what we wanted. Jaguar builds beautiful, fast cars ‑ cars that are alive. We wanted to show the C‑X75 out on the road, going fast and with some spectacular scenery in the background.

Obviously secrecy was the major challenge here. In these days of cell phone cameras, it’s easy for anyone to become a spy‑photographer and post a photo on the Web in seconds.

So, four weeks before the Paris Show reveal, we began one of the biggest stealth operations Jaguar as ever been involved in. One that would involve four secret photo locations across Europe, scores of people under strictest confidentiality agreements, a mountain of photo equipment, and one very big truck.

Literally hours after Jaguar’s Advanced Design team had completed the car, it was heading for a film studio in south‑west London. Here a video crew of 12 to 15 people would spend 48 hours straight, shooting footage of the car’s every detail.

Then it was back in the truck and north up the M40 motorway to Oxfordshire at a second studio we use for still photography. Another 48 hours and all those dramatic, stark‑white‑background shots were in the bag.

Thankfully the C‑X75 had been built with height‑adjustable suspension so that its low‑slung body could get on to the truck’s loading ramp without scraping. At the press of a button, the whole car raises up an extra three inches. It saved a lot of damage.

With the two studio shoots complete, car and truck were on their way to southern Spain. We chose a fantastic location that covers over 350 acres and features three or four different platforms with mountains off in the distance. Although it’s open, which means it’s perfect for those late afternoon ‘peach‑light’ static shots, it’s totally secure.

We were not looking forward to the final location where all the car‑to‑car moving shots and outdoor action video would be shot. We used a public road near Almeria, two hours north of Malaga – it's where a lot of those ‘spaghetti’ westerns were filmed back in the ’60s.

It was here, with this fabulous mountain backdrop, where we shot a lot of the film we used at the Paris reveal, plus all the downloadable video and stills you see on our website. Best of all, apart from a few stone chips, the car came away unscathed.

Naturally we all breathed an enormous sigh of relief when the car rolled silently – under zero‑emission electric power – on to the stage at the Rodin Museum. We wanted the element of surprise and, amazingly, that’s what we achieved.

At Paris, the C‑X75 certainly stole the show. On the morning of the first press day, more than 1,300 websites featured the car and used our images. Since then, literally thousands of magazines, TV shows and websites worldwide have covered the car.

You’ll get to see this ground‑breaking concept in Los Angeles next week when it makes its North American show debut. When you see the video on the screens behind the car, now you’ll know how we put it all together.