Comments on: Ford may sell Land Rover to sweeten Jag deal

By: jeff

jeff — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 21:27:19 +0000

Someone said that they should “decrease productivity to increase the exclusivity of Jaguar & LR”; I think it’s actually quite the opposite. Ford might call it their “Premier Group”, but Volvo, Jaguar & LR aren’t truly premier…at least not anymore. Aston Martin is, but that $150,000 threshold is pretty much the cutoff if you want to play in the Rolls/Bentley/Ferrari world. In my opinion, they would never be successful in bringing Jaguar up to that level and the bottom line in profit is sales. Jaguar, Volvo & LR are and always will be a very classy car, but they are for the mini-millionaire types and should be offered for sale with the same type of availability of Lexus. In case Ford stopped noticing, it’s Toyota/Lexus that they are trying to catch. They should take a page from their book and make a stronger effort to emulate the success they’ve had by increasing the number of available dealerships & available product.

Jaguar & LR have notoriously poor maintenance reputations that are well earned so increasing the available dealerships for service and sales is a must to attract more buyers.

By: Carnut4ever

Carnut4ever — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:41:49 +0000

How about Toyota then? I think they have the money and expertise to revive Jaguar. They need this base for stronger European arm. They need as many brands as they can get to topple GM for the world’s number one.

By: Renton

Renton — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 02:07:59 +0000

BMW should re-capture Land Rover.

Bernd Pischetsrieder should buy Jag and bring it back to glory as only a German firm can. VAG could bring this one back and make it great. They need this market segment.

The Germans have done well with British marques.

Throw Mercury under the fukking bus.

Hold onto Mazda like its your friggin lifeline.

Start making some exciting cars.

By: The Stig

The Stig — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 19:27:12 +0000

GM should buy them to expand their limited product offerings. And it clearly makes financial sense.

By: British_Rover

British_Rover — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 18:15:15 +0000

Uhhh Land Rover sales have been hitting record numbers month after month world wide. The only bad month in the past couple of years was this past July. Sales have not gone down at all for Land Rover.

As to Ford runing the Range Rover quite the opposite. A 2006 Range Rover is vastly superior to the 2003-2005 Range Rovers. If you had ever driven one you would know that. BMW engineered a front differeantail in the 2003-2005 Range Rovers that was set up to fail. Many of the front diffs on those range rovers just exploded with no warning. For 2006 the problem has finally been solved by redesigning the entire front subframe.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 17:03:47 +0000

So wait…selling the unreliable, overpriced, and generally disappointing Land Rover along side the failing Jaguar should “sweeten” the deal?

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:37:47 +0000

The French need Jaguar and Land Rover, I suspect Peugeot Citroen would buy them

By: Renton

Renton — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:11:34 +0000

Ford wrecked the jewel of an SUV that BMW designed and built with the current Range Rover.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:01:06 +0000

I think Ford never was interested in these companies, but had one goal: to destroy more competitors. What happened, after they were acquired by Ford, all of them lost their popularity and the sales went down. On the other hand Ford was able to make them dependent and improve it’s own line. So even after it sells Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, they will cary Ford’s parts and platforms for decades, plus the companies lost their face and could be even drawn from US market if it gets worse, of which dream all the big three.

Same strategy used by GMC, but Chrysler wasn’t smart enough. Yah! lets kill the companies instead of making high quality and competitive products!

By: British_Rover

British_Rover — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 15:51:17 +0000

I don’t see it happning. Land Rover is Fords strongest dvision right now across the board. They have good product and are the only SUV make that is actually seeing a growth in sales. The quality of their vehicles has finaly turned the corner and the older bad Land Rovers are all dropping out of warranty in the next 12-18 months. The old body range rovers are now all out of factory warranty and the Freelanders from 2002-2003 which were the worst two years will be out of warranty in 18 months as well.

By: David

David — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 15:07:47 +0000

What could the possible valuation of a Jag/LR deal be worth? With no great market traction, Jag could maybe be worth $1.5-$2.0B with LR fetching another $4-$5.5B? The integration from the Ford side would not likely allow a 100% sale of the equity in either brand and thus decrease the valuation of the deal. Ford needs the engineering and the likley payoff of LR after the last 6 years of getting them right-sized and right-quality-minded with now a cache of quality products. I know that Jaguar would require some other bundling to fetch anything but why sell the LR brand to do it? You could likely simply sell the brand and the intellectual property of Jaguar for as much as what it’s worth as a division?

I just don’t see this garnering that much cash for a company that needs more than just cash? They need products that will drive bottom line profits and also a flattening of their marketshare losses.

Additionally, to the comment about a UK buyer coming in for Jag, LR, Rover cars, wasn’t it the UK owners that originally made these vehicles into the highly branded low quality vehicles that they were before Ford added some value to the under the skin components? British motor companies sold or shuttered their companies in the past 20 years b/c there was no success in what they were doing. Besides, at tight margins for automobiles in general, why would a high net worth group come in a buy a car company when they could purchase something that can throw cash and require less capital investment?

By: jay

jay — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:29:59 +0000

I wonder who will buy them….
Fords in the dumps right now they need to get their act and product line together. Jaguar is no longer what it used to be.

By: stuart

stuart — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 13:36:03 +0000

Honda is the only perfect buyer. They have the cash and potential to make these two brand flourish again.

However a year ago Renault-Nissan wanted to buy Jaguar and withh nissan having so many SUV adding Land Rover as well won’t be a bad thing.

Still prefer the Honda idea more though

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:43:21 +0000

Dump the Butler and the Pikey off to some Russian mobster like a soccer club. Brits with money do not get their hands dirty or rise before noon.

Jag is about as appealing as the Queens hats and the Prince of Darkness comes standard with every LR; another gaping hole in the balance sheet Ford does not need.

j i m

By: JohnnyBlazE

JohnnyBlazE — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 11:35:51 +0000

I agree with that dream – MG Rover, LR/RR and Jag together would be a meaty alliace – Rover’s V8s were always fun and they had that britishness about their cars for a long time…

The UK is filled with rich brits; more money is turned over in 1 square mile (central london) than most places per day… If a few patriotic rich guys brought back british brands and started making magic happen the country’s car industry could one day rock… And screw anyone who wants to keep TVR – bring them back in the mix too

*hums god save the queen*

By: axel cortez

axel cortez — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:15:36 +0000

hope someone buy jaguar before ford let it die…

By: Ryan H

Ryan H — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 07:24:49 +0000

DCX should buy both of them. Finally the two legendary off-road companies would come together in Jeep and LR. Then again, as long as there will still be Jaguars in the future, I will be happy.

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 04:59:06 +0000

In my dream world, Jag, LR and MG-Rover (owned in part or whole now by some Chinese firm) would coalesce to form a new, more stable luxury company with a range that can take on any luxury car/SUV line while allowing each make to build an image (Jaguar = exclusive, MG-Rover = entry-level luxo, LR = capable luxury utility) instead of walking the tight-rope that Mercedes and BMW always walk between entry-level and six-figure.

By: Dan2

Dan2 — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 04:07:00 +0000

Nice piece Dan. I agree. Ford’s just bleeding cash right now so sometimes you need to cut the leg off to get rid of the foot.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 03:58:44 +0000

short version:
If selling Jag can help put some distance between it and aston martin the way the rolls/bentley split did by selling the two brands to disparate owners BMW and VW
(compare silverseraph/arnage differentiation to phantom/contiGT), then I’m all for it.
Everyone noted the Rangie when BMW debuted it. The Range Sport is a compact LR3 with Rangie styling. The public wanted the Range Stormer, and they wanted it cheap and light. I’d say it’s suffered the same way Jag has, regardless of sales success. Do anything to sell Jag and cut some cash losses, even if it means losing LR.

long version:
I love jag, but I’m all for Ford selling it
The first XK was sweet, everything the XJS had failed to be. The revised/mid-cycle ’95/6 XJ had great build quality revisions. Cutting the old inline six and v-12 and replacing them with the v8 was a good move for packaging and cost-cutting, if at the expense of what little exotic-ness the jaguar brand held. But Ford bit off more than it could chew. The mustang has been the first successful DEW98 after the flops of s-type, lincoln LS, and thunderbird. The revised S-type has been lauded for its improvements, and the new diesel has been praised in Europe, but these strides have been glossed over in the US, and nobody noticed. The X-type was just a misstep for everyone. It cheapened what people expect of jaguar and didn’t offer true jag values while making the curves of the XJ a joke by wrapping a mondeo/contour spinoff with jaguar imagery. Jaguar has repeatedly ignored its best ideas. The R-coupe concept, the F-type, the XK180, all these projects have fallen by the wayside. The newest XJ is beautiful, just like an aston martin. And there’s the problem. JUST LIKE an aston martin! The similarities between the new xj and the db9 are even better founded than the ones between the xk8 and db7. The lack of jag’s good ideas making it to production are proof of the need for new ownership. I just hope the next s-type looks like the r-coupe.

Land Rover has been tossed around too much, the current range including BMW-engineered and Ford powered models, Some models styled to look like the BMW-engineered ones but fully Ford engineered, and others designed to look like Rover-designed models that are fully Ford engineered, but way a billion pounds for no reason. I would love to have seen “the Landie” reach production by now. You know, the one-off concept from forever ago that was supposed to have replaced the defender?

Both Jag and Land Rover deserve to have their image signal boosted back to original strength. Jag needs a boxster style roadster and a true 4-seat GT at a sub-XJ price, Land Rover needs to release a model that performs like a wrangler for merely 1.5x wrangler pricing…. sell’em to the chinese for all I care, I bet china will finally bring US consumers an MG TF coupe! And I really really hate chinese products, so that’s saying something.

Ford can’t fight so many wars, balancing sheets and model-line images, at the same time. The DNA shared between all the cars using versions of the Jag v8 is a perfect example. This is good for everyone

By: ehhh

ehhh — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 03:41:31 +0000

I would like to see Hyundai get the company, though many (brits) might find it outrageous. Hyundai is flourishing and really getting their act together, plus I believe they mentioned looking into a luxury brand. It would be much easier for them to buy Jaguar than to make their own brand (and keep its customer base, however small it may be) than to have to build up a new brands name. I think its time we see what the Koreans can do for the luxury end of the market.

By: al

al — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 03:36:02 +0000

that would be a smart move. specially io think that jaguar must be sold to somone who can actually help them out and sorry but the germans cant do this this time since BMW, MERCEDES and AUDI all compete aginst it. i think Jaguar should become its own company and make very few cars so that it is more exclusive and can gain reputation also so that it makes a profit and can actually survive for our grandchildren to see jaguar.