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.
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monkeyhawk (anonymous) says…
My 1988 Jaguar XJ6 was a toss up with my 1974 Vega as the worst cars I ever owned. Be really careful what you wish for.
LogicMan (anonymous) says…
"My 1988 Jaguar XJ6 was a toss up with my 1974 Vega as the worst cars I ever owned"Had just a few electrical and engine problems with that Jag?The Vega worked much better when the 140 was replaced with a small block V-8. :-)Good luck to Alan in turning Ford around. Sounds like the new management at Chrysler is making progress there too.
Haiku_Cuckoo (anonymous) says…
My 1988 Jaguar XJ6 was a toss up with my 1974 Vega as the worst cars I ever owned. ========The pre-Ford Jaguars were horrible in terms of reliability. It will be interesting to see what Tata does with the company.Hopefully this will allow Ford to make their own cars more reliable and, more importantly, focus on their horrible customer service.
monkeyhawk (anonymous) says…
I can't even begin to list all the Jag problems. I just remember it being in the shop 16 times in one year. My neighbors thought I kept buying a different Taurus every other week, since that was the dealer loaner. It got to the point where I begged the dealer to just give me the Ford and keep the Jag.As far as the Vega goes, it laid down on me the day I paid it off. Warped head. I walked away and sold it to a dealer friend for very little money, but he still cursed me for years ....
Tandava (anonymous) says…
Interesting and more than a little ironic that these staid old British autos are now going to be owned by a former British colony.
Left_handed (anonymous) says…
At least the Vega didn't explode when it was rear-ended the way that the Ford Pinto did.
blindrabbit (anonymous) says…
If I'm not mistaken, Ford also purchased and then later sold another (even more upscale) British automobile: Aston-Martin. Martin's are still being produced, see em in Florida, California. Maybe, Ford does not know how to market these brands!!
jrlii (anonymous) says…
The all time worst car I've had was a 1975 Fiat 128. I understand that little monster was bad enough Italy has forbidden the export of parts for it.The Fiat had numerous engine problems, and it seemed like every repair required removing the exhaust manifold to be able to reach what ever needed replacing.I have a friend who has had a Jaguar XJS for years, and liked her original convertible enough the when the cost of feeding her every day beater went through the roof when gas prices went up, she went out and bought a used XJS coup. . . But then she is an honest-to-God car nut. . .Another Jaguar driving friend described himself as suffering from "British Car Disease:" The contraption was so wonderful when it was working, he couldn't remember how long and how much it cost to fix. . . He was last seen happily driving a Prius.
blue73harley (anonymous) says…
Pintos may have exploded but they had great little engines. I had a hopped-up Pinto wagon (wagons did not have the exploding problem) that would stomp Vega GTs. The OHC fours in the Pintos were used for years in dirt track racing. Maybe they still are? Anyway, in the Pinto, the engine would outlast the car. In the Vega, the car rusted and the motor gave out at about the same time - around 50K miles.
dorothyhr (Dorothy Hoyt-Reed) says…
blue73harley (Anonymous) says:Pintos may have exploded but they had great little engines. I had a hopped-up Pinto wagon (wagons did not have the exploding problem) that would stomp Vega GTs. The OHC fours in the Pintos were used for years in dirt track racing. Maybe they still are? Anyway, in the Pinto, the engine would outlast the car. In the Vega, the car rusted and the motor gave out at about the same time - around 50K miles.You must have had better luck than I did with the Pinto. I had a friend who was a mechanic. Whenever he tried to time it according to factory standards, it wouldn't run. He had to time it by ear. And he had to do it once a month. Fortunately all I had to do was buy him a beer. In 1990 I bought a Ford Festiva. When Ford sent me a new car questionnaire, I told them about the Pinto and said this was their second and last chance. Fortunately, that little car worked great and ran for well over 100,000 before we traded it.
BigPrune (anonymous) says…
The whole Jaguar sedan built on the Ford 500/future name"Taurus" platform was a bust.
blue73harley (anonymous) says…
dorothy - some earlier Pintos had a pushrod motor as the standard version. I am guessing you had one of those. The OHC versions really were bullet-proof. As a teenager, I did alot of messing with the engine including ripping off all the 1971-era smog equipment and installing some basic speed equipment. I never had any problem with tuning it.