It’s amazing to most how background events involving commodities such as motor vehicles can be so deceiving and complicated. Take the case of the Jaguar and Land Rover products which for years have been admired, even coveted, by so many.

Things have gone so poorly that the two lines are being sold by the Ford Motor Co. to India’s Tata Motors Ltd. Many may have been surprised that Ford owns the two entities. It has not been a pleasant experience for the U.S. automaker. Jaguars and Land Rovers have not measured up to the high hopes Ford had when it bought them.

So now, Tata is in a deal with Ford that will net the U.S. automaker $1.7 billion. That sounds like a lot of money, except that it is only roughly a third of the price it paid for the two luxury brands.

Ford bought Jaguar for $2.5 billion in 1989 and Land Rover for $2.7 billion in 2000. It admits the purchases were mistakes and now it wants to unload them to focus on its main brands. There are those who wonder if the Tata group which specializes in economy cars can do better than Ford.

Yet Ford, now headed by Lawrence native Alan Mulally, lost $12.6 billion in 2006 and cut that to $2.7 billion last year. Mulally says Ford will invest proceeds from the Jaguar and Land Rover sales for quality products and product development. Despite the “glamorous” image that Jaguar and Land Rover have gained, Ford is glad to get out from under those loads.

These are not fly-by-night products. Jaguar has been around since 1922 and Land Rover since 1948. Many an auto buff has grown up dreaming about owning one or both – all the while unaware of the struggles for survival occurring in the background.

Lawrence’s Mulally seems to have Ford heading in the right direction after a long and storied career with Boeing. The sale of two vehicle formats to an Indian source seems to be another move in the direction of the kind of success and profitability many believe Mulally will bring about.