Zastava_101

Ford is working hard to unload Jaguar and Land Rover, and unlike Aston Martin deal, the Oval wants to be completely out. While Ford kept a small stake in Aston just like Daimler did with Chrysler, whoever buys the other two British brands will have to take everything.

Ford's European boss, Lewis Booth, spoke in Frankfurt this week and told reporters that the company wants final bids by the end of September and the deal closed by the end of the year. According to Booth, Ford needs the cash and wants to rid itself of distractions from its core businesses. Evidently, it feels that keeping a stake might be no better than keeping the whole thing, and it would still ultimately be responsible for what happens to the two companies.

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/09/13/f...you-on-the-wa/

Moosetang

Makes sense, Jag's still in the red and looks to stay there awhile, so whoever buys Jag/LR buys that load off of Ford. Why keep a stake in a loss leader? If you're gonna unload you might as well unload the whole thing.

Hope they end up in good hands, someone with deep enough pockets to see them back to black.

rhumb

Bet Ford won't get much for them anyways. While Jag's products are showing signs of perking up, they're still gushing red ink and I don't think Rover's any cash cow either. And now that everyone know's Ford's so desperate to get rid of them, who's going to offer much money anyways?

I don't think Ford played this one too well as it reeks of deperation -- which it pretty much is but they should have played their cards a little closer to their vest.

Q`res

You could almost argue that any amount of money they get for Jag/LR is a good amount for Ford. The biggest benefit would seem to be getting all that red ink off of Fords books.

V10

The sooner Ford is able to dump Jag and LR the better.

Adding up what Ford paid for Jaguar ($2.5B in 1990), what Ford reportedly spent trying to fix Jaguar (reportedly $4B) and how much Jag has lost in the 18 years Ford has owned it ($3.5B), Ford has squandered $10B on Jaguar. Much more if valued in today's dollars and not 1990 and up $$.

Jag was a total disaster when Ford bought it in 1999, selling <50K cars / year and having the worst quality & reliability on planet Earth.

Ford gave it a gallant try, but the only way Ford could have saved Jag would have been to completely close down Jaguar in the UK and just use the Jag nameplate on cars made elsewhere (Europe or US).

The purchase of Land Rover was pure stupidity and so far has cost Ford $6B between the original $3B purchase price in 1999 and operating losses since.

Ford will probably get only about $3B for both Jag and LR making their total loss in 2007 dollars somewhere between $15B and $20B. Imagine what $20B put into Ford, Lincoln and Mercury product development would have given us.

97svtgoin05gt

I don't give a rats posterior about Rover, but I'm sad about Jag. Some of the new product coming out of there is just super sexy. I was really hoping they'd be able to make a run with it. I've talked to some old time Jag owners and they said there was just too much Ford influence in the newer products and that kind of killed it for the old Jag faithful.

V10

The Jaguar faithful have forgotten how HORRIBLE pre-Ford Jags were. They were so unreliable that a company sold conversions to Chevy engines and GM electronics for those pre-Ford Jags.

Ford has kept a very hands off approach with Jag. Other than fixing the HORRIBLE Jag manufacturing quality and reliability problems, Ford has let Jag do it's thing, which as we see hasn't turned out very well.

The bottom line is if Jag hasn't come around in 18 years and >$10B of investment, it NEVER will. Although I'm a bit of Jag fan, the sooner Ford can unload Jag, the better.

And remind those old Jag faithful, if Ford hadn't bought Jag back in 1989, it woud have been out of business buy 1993.

97svtgoin05gt

LOL..I hear ya. My how soon they forget.

ShowGT

They just spent 7 Million to rebadge the Five Hundred, whats another few Millions here.

jsaylor

For what Ford has admitted to sinking into Jaguar since they bought the company you could rebadge the Taurus roughly one thousand four hundred times and change at seven million a pop. We aren't talkng about a few million here and there.

To be fair the failure to revitalize Jaguar is in fact nothing less than Ford's failure to properly run and revitalize the brand. But at this point turning Jaguar around has morphed from a curious sideshow they didn't have time to properly sort out when they were making mega-bucks on Explorers into an expensive distraction they can no longer afford.

I hate to see Ford ditch the brand, but if they couldn't figure it out when they were flush with cash I cannot imagine how they will manage now that they have Ford and Lincoln to fix as well.

ShowGT

When Ford was making profits, they were on a spending spree in 1999 into 2001 and then the market began to open up and slow down.

Moosetang

The principal problem with Ford's handling of Jaguar was over-ambition. They tried to bring in huge sales by expanding the model range down, but all they did was replace the reliability/quality issues with dillution of brand and over-expansion issues. Had they focused jsut on the XJ and XK, gotten those two models to a high standard, and then opened up the range. And even then, running downmarket is never the right direction.

V10

The principle problem with Ford's handling of Jaguar is that Ford kept it's manufacturing operation in the UK and did not move fast enough to close the obsolete and high cost UK factories.

When Ford bought Jag, Jag was selling 50K cars / year, IIRC about 1/2 of Jag's hayday. Ford's goal was 250,000 cars / year. To be profitable at 50K cars / year given Jag's bloated manufacturing cost, they would have had to double prices to sell them profitably. So the way to make a profit at competitive market prices is to up volume, which didn't work because ALL of Jag's products have been a generation out of date compared to competitors like BMW & Mercedes.

In hindsight we could say that the success of Lexus and growth of BMW squeezed Jag out of the market. I really don't think that any company will be able to buy Jag and make it profitable unless they close the UK opearations and use just the Jag brand on products engineered and manufactured elsewhere. Jag would be of most value to a Chinese, Korean or Indian auto company intent on moving up in the global market.

Hollywood_North GT

I guess it's time to start picking out burial plots for Jag and LR. Doubt they'll be with us much longer. Kind of a shame, really, cause they are both such storied brands with terrific potential.

Knight

you should buy them Hollywood.

Hollywood_North GT

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm... no.