If, as tentatively planned, the 2016/17 Formula E season opens in Montreal, that will suit Jaguar perfectly for their return to racing. I mention this, not for profound commercial reasons related to the important North American market, but because Montreal removed their trams some time ago.
The thought has been prompted by memories of Jaguar's trumpeted F1 debut in Australia. Part of the launch in 2000 included spraying a Melbourne tram in British Racing Green and carrying the slogan 'The Cat is Back'. It's an understatement to say the sight of this tram clanking along Flinders Street was hardly the cutting edge image of a blue chip motor manufacturer going racing in F1. At least they won't be tempted to do the same in Montreal.
That PR misjudgement in Victoria was no surprise to those of us who had witnessed the team's brash and triumphant media launch at Lord's cricket ground, followed by a black tie gala for the good and the great of motor racing, with a few B-class show business personalities thrown in.
Jaguar's owner, Ford, had bought Stewart Grand Prix. The scary optimism of the launch was charged by Stewart's only F1 win a few months before at the Nürburgring; a somewhat fortuitous but well-worked victory for Johnny Herbert in a dry-wet-dry race. There was the unspoken but unmistakeable belief that further wins would come, almost as a matter of course now that the hard part -- winning your first Grand Prix -- had been reached. Even the chairman of Jaguar Cars, Wolfgang Reitzle, seemed to think that third place in the Constructors' Championship would be within reach at the very least.
Jaguar came away from their first season with four points. Ferrari claimed 170. It was a painful indoctrination, exacerbated by the unrealistic and uninformed view of the Ford Motor Company in Michigan. It would end with similar embarrassment after five seasons and just two podiums.
Ford no longer own Jaguar, which is perhaps just as well, judging by the experience of Niki Lauda, brought in halfway through 2001 to liaise between Jaguar Racing, Cosworth Engineering (manufacturers of the team's V10 engine) and PI electronics (another Ford-owned company). It was a tenuous relationship to say the least, one that was brought to an abrupt halt even though the man with the axe, Richard Parry-Jones, admitted Lauda had done nothing wrong.
"There is nothing specific that he has done wrong. But he does not have the technical depth to put in place the kind of improvements we feel necessary," said Ford's vice-president of product development, a man with no depth of racing experience.
Being the pragmatist that he is, Lauda could cope with the sudden and unexpected parting of ways - providing the final year of his contract was honoured financially. That meant dealing with the bean counters at Ford in the USA. Even with Lauda's vast commercial knowledge of business in the diverse worlds of motor sport and international airlines, this experience would verge on the extraordinary, not to say comical. I'll hand you over to Lauda to tell the story in his inimitable style.
"When I started working there, the finance guy at Jaguar called me and said he had to give me this book. He called it the 'Ford Compliance Rules' and said it means whatever you do, it has to comply with what's in this book. I asked him for an example.
"He said: 'Okay. Let's say you are staying in a hotel and you take a mineral [sparkling] water from the mini bar, you have to pay for it. But if you take a still water, you don't have to pay for it.' I asked him if he was serious and when he said he was, I told him to keep the book. He said: 'Niki, you really need to take this. You don't want to make any mistakes.' I said I didn't want to know. I told him he would never have an invoice in his system from me because I will pay for my own expenses rather than have all this bullshit. So, that's what I did; everything like that was paid by my private credit card.
"When this thing was over with Jaguar and I was saying they needed to pay me for the next year, suddenly there were people rushing over from America, running into Jaguar and demanding to have the accounts for Niki Lauda. I said I had no accounts. 'What d'you mean? You must have expenses.' I said: 'There are no expenses.' 'But there must be!' They just could not believe it. Can you imagine? These people had come all that way, looking for this f------ mineral water! After six months fight, I got my money. And they found no mineral water."
That shouldn't be a problem this time round. Jaguar is now owned by Tata and the Indian conglomerate, among its 600,000 employees, has people in Tata Global Beverages making more mineral water than you can shake an expense account at.