The Man Behind Jaguar's Most Controversial Car Ever Has Been Fired

JLR CCO Gerry McGovern was asked to leave the company on Monday, Autocar reports, saying that his position was terminated with immediate effect. A source told Autocar India that McGovern was "escorted out of the office," an unexpected move for a C-suite employee who has been at the company for over 20 years.

One week ago, JLR brought in a new CEO. PB Balaji, who was Chief Financial Officer at its parent company Tata Motors, came in to replace retiring CEO Adrian Mardell. At the time, Tata chair Natarajan Chandrasekaran said that the automaker had been looking for a replacement for a few months. Firing McGovern would seem to be Balaji's first move at the automaker, and it's a big one.

McGovern started his design career in the late 1970s with Chrysler, in both the UK and in Detroit. He moved to the Austin Rover Group in 1982 and part of that long stint included his first Land Rover designs, including designing the 1997 Freelander and leading the team that created the 2001 (L322) third-generation Range Rover.

After a brief stint at Ford, he returned to Land Rover in 2004 as Director, Advanced Design. He said then that "Land Rover fascinates me more than any other car maker because it has its roots in pure design as opposed to styling."

In his second term with JLR, he oversaw the modern day Defender as well as the model that became the Range Rover Evoque. He is largely responsible for the current Land Rover/Range Rover design language that has seen the brand's image and sales reach new highs.

Of course, he's also responsible for the reinvention of Jaguar and that includes the Type 00 Concept. Jaguar's attempt to go electric has been a bit of a trainwreck, though it would be tough to blame most of that on design.

The look of the Type 00 and its intended impact to move Jaguar upmarket, though, is on the CCO. The Type 00 has been extremely controversial, with an extremely long hood, new logos, and other issues. Frank Stephenson, a former designer for BMW, Ferrari, Maserati, and others, described it as "a concept that wasn’t fully thought through before it went to prototype," and as lacking cohesion and seeming unfinished. Even McGovern's own design team was unhappy with the rebranding, reportedly sending him a letter complaining they were left out.

New model troubles aside, JLR has recently suffered a big setback following a cyberattack. The attack put the company's production on hold for months, and played a large part in the company posting revenues down £11.5 billion (16.6%) in the first half of its financial year (April 1 through September 30).

Neither JLR nor parent company Tata have issued a statement about the news. We've reached out to both and will update with any additional information.