Zombie or no, it’s either JAG-wahr or Jag-yoo-ar. Never Jag-wire.
Source - I worked for a company that did marketing and research for Jaguar, and they (Jaguar) would send the occasional memo reminding everyone of the pronunciation.
I might buy that argument if the car company was named for an individual, and he pronounced it that way. Say, for example, Sir James Arkwright Danforths-Jaguar, the 14th Landgrave of Pembroke, was tinkering with his old Wolseley and decided it would be jolly fun to start a car company, plus maybe it would finally get Chuck Rolls and Freddie Royce to shut up about silver-this, and ghost-that, then maybe I’d go along with you. But it does seem that the car is named for the cat, and should be pronounced accordingly.
When this thread was opened I pronounced it “Fancy Ford”, nowadays they are referred to as “Bodacious Tatas”.
I don’t think he does that any more.
Well, as soon as they are made King of English Pronunciation, we’ll start listening to them!
I have Jag-wire cables on all my bikes.
It was always Jag-Wire to me, and by the way, are they still the shittiest cars ever made that weren’t Italian?
It has never been Jag-Wire to me.
Well the CAR has a jag wahr hood ornament so…
How about Andre Iguodala, 2015 NBA Finals MVP and Golden State Warriors 6th man, the announcers keep calling him Igwa-dala, and also Igu-dala. Obviously, it’s not a very common name, but I don’t think that it rhymes with iguana. Unless you pronounce iguana ‘igu-ana’.
If were talking flash motors, down my manor* they’re Jags.
*London, innit.
I recently moved to Ohio from New York, and I hear a lot of people saying “jag-wire” around here, which always sound wrong, since I pronounce it “Jag-whar”
My guess is that the origin of it is an “ae” pronunciation of the second “a” in Jaguar, as people tend to pronounce other words with that southern “ae” around here.
The “u” then kind of blends together with the rest of the second syllable, becoming more of a “w” sound.
“Jag-uae-er”
This is the only feasible explanation I can come up with.
Yes, those are the two I hear. The 2nd only in bad Jaguar commercials.
Not in THIS part of Ohio. :dubious:
I’m from NE Ohio, and I say “jag-wire” 
I pronounced it “jagwire” when I was a child and had never seen it written. Maybe the adults around me said it that way or maybe I just “heard it that way” because I was familiar with the word “wire” but not the “uar” sound.
Once I was old enough to understand spelling and pronunciation, it was and has remained “jagwar”. “Jagwire” just sounds ignorant and grating. Much the same way “jagwar” irritates my Brit friends :o
I just call them Jags
It’s got to be some flavor of the Southern US accent at work.
In my limited experience (though I did live in Baltimore for over 2 years I only sometimes heard the “real deep” accent a few times), I noticed that sometimes,
“where (have) you been?” => “whaaaar yew bin?”
“why are you asking?” => “wha’aar yew askin?”
In quick or slurred speech.
So someone with that pronunciation basis, hearing “Jag-war”, could certainly “map” it in their mind as essentially the same sound as “where” and “why’re” and “wire”.
And then later, perhaps to hypercorrectly enunciate it as “wire”, like how some people of a certain age and demographic in my part of the country (Long Island) might over-correct the word “idea” as “i-dear”.
Interesting idea, and I can hear it. (ae being [æ], or the a in cat. Or possibly [a], which is the a in the Austrailan “hat” (link to sound).
My assumption has always been that it came from certain Southern dialects where there is little difference between the I sound and the ah sound, essentially removing the diphthong I grew up with a grandpa who refered to “wahr” ([waɹ]) for “wire.” And then people who heard that thought they were saying jag-wire (/ˈʤæɡwaɪr/), rather than jag-wahr (/ˈʤæɡwɑr/).
Even if you can’t read IPA, I think you can see how similar the sounds actually are. Both have ah sounds, just one lacks the ɪ sound, aka, the diphthong.
In some regional accents, jag-wire would sound not unlike jag-wahr.