Comments on: Ford says Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover not for sale

By: lanapat7

lanapat7 — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:31:39 +0000

Jaguar is dead. Not even the British Royal Family drive Jaguars anymore.
The new S-type styling is ugly- a desperate move that will not save cash strapped Jaguar/Ford.
And their marketing sucks. Those ads do not convey any sense of glamour, style, luxury, uniqueness that would make one trade in a Mercedes Benz for one of those cars.

As to the other brands- NO ONE is interested in purchasing them. Sad story, horrible end.

By: British_Rover

British_Rover — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 02:51:56 +0000

Endurancevm and dl_caldwell you two dont know much about Land Rover that is very obvious.

First of all BMW invested very little in Land Rover. BMW bought Land Rover because they wanted to get into the SUV market quickly. BMW had zero experience building trucks of any type unlike mercedes which has had many years of experience building commercial trucks. The fastest cheapest way to get into the Luxury SUV was to buy the creator of the Luxury SUV Land Rover. They used Land Rovers 4wd tech to help design the X5. They basicly raped Land Rover of all the technology they could as quickly as possible and invested very little in the brand itself. Yes they did start the design of the Current Mark III Range Rover but they made sure it was behind the X5 in terms of features. I mean come on it didn’t have auto head lights originaly designed into the vehicle and was only offered with a 5 speed automatic when a 6 speed was avaliable.

Land Rover is actually very profitable for ford. Land Rover’s sales have been in a positive rise for over two years now and we are on pace to break the 2005 CY sales record for the North American Market and the world. Land Rover is Fords most profitable single division and Land Rover is the only SUV make that is having a positive sales increase in a declining SUV market.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:24:47 +0000

Jaguar actually did makke sense in the case of selling cars in europe. They had no car to compete with the Germans. THa jaguar was AND STILL IS the only brand which has the slightest chance of competing in europe against the Mercedes and Bmers.

Thats because although Audi’s are decent they are still seen as Volkswagens, Volvo are boring and nowhere near as good as the germans, same goes for Saab and Lexus, and cadillac is just plain ****.

The XJ, XK and S-type and good cars which sell well but to make money they need a proper C-Class and 3 series rival not a ford mondeo knock off.

By: dl_caldwell

dl_caldwell — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:44:44 +0000

I don’t understand why Ford purchased these money losers in the first place. They don’t fit with Fords culture. Mazda made sense – they have a great product line with good quality control and loyal customers. All things Ford needs and needs badly. Volvo builds conservative cars with excellent safety features – they fit with Ford too. But Jaguar? Land Rover? Aston? It looks like Bill had money burning a hole in his pocket and didn’t know what to do with it. If he had only invested that money into building new Fords…

By: Endurancevm

Endurancevm — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 15:29:21 +0000

Ford is not going to sell the companies because no one would buy them. BMW bought LR, invested alot of money into them, then dumped it to, who else, Ford. Ford made the stupid decision of buying LR because their cars arent that great and LR is also a big money loss for them. Aston Martin would hold the prestige value for other Fords(hypothetically) and Volvo will have some sort of safety effect on Ford cars. Ford never needed LR…never understood that decision.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:35:26 +0000

Sell Jag/LR/Rover to Honda. Aston to Lotus or someone