Jaguar

April 30th through May 3rd, 2009, marks the return of The Mitty to Road Atlanta in Georgia. I first attended the event about 25 years ago when it was still called The Walter Mitty Challenge. At that time the vintage racing group SVRA was still knows as teh Southern Vintage Racing Association. Times have changed. The event is now just called “The Mitty”, the SVRA is now the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association, and the event is now part of the HSR – Historic Sportscar Racing series. Oh, and I now am married, have kids, and am supposedly a responsible adult. But best of all I am actually going back to enjoy the festivities! With Classic Motorsports Magazine hosting the event, this year looks to be the best one ever. For 2009 Jaguar is the featured marque at The Mitty, dozens […]

Ford Motor Co.’s Bennie Fowler cheered last week when Jaguar finished in a tie for No. 1 on J.D. Power and Associates’ long-term vehicle dependability study. “I happen to know the guy who was the COO at Jaguar in 2003 when we started making improvements,” said Fowler, who was, indeed, COO of Jaguar in 2003. Today, Fowler is Ford’s group vice president of quality. Back then, Fowler and a team of executives put Ford processes in place at Jaguar to improve quality. Ford sold Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata Group in 2008, but J.D. Power’s dependability study evaluates three-year old, or 2006, models. From Freep.com

The British International Motor Show planned for 2010 in London has been cancelled because of the global slump in demand for cars, according to the U.K. Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. “The economic downturn and the unprecedented challenges facing the industry, both in the U.K. and around the world, have made it impossible for exhibitors to commit to a 2010 event,” the trade group said today in a statement. The event has attracted an increasing number of visitors and the decision to cancel was “extremely difficult,” SMMT President Paul Everitt said in the statement. The move followed a thorough consultation with the industry, the group said. The SMMT is pressing the U.K. government to boost aid to automakers, including direct incentives to trade old cars for new ones. Carmakers across Britain have slowed production in response to declining demand. […]

The 2010 Jaguar XKR would be considered, by most accounts, a mild revision of the outgoing model. Its state-of-the-art aluminum monocoque chassis carries over unchanged. The design, save for a few minor updates, is the same as the outgoing model’s. But few would count that against the silken Jag, whose curvaceous lines are almost universally admired in the industry. No, what separates the new XKR from its predecessor is the heart transplant it has undergone: in the place of the 420-horsepower AJ34S supercharged V8, the beating heart of the new XKR, is the next-generation 5-liter version, its supercharger supplemented by direct injection to twist out an astonishing 510 horsepower. That figure alone puts the Jag well ahead of Aston’s V8 Vantage, ahead of the V12-powered DB9 as a matter of fact, and on par with the flagship DBS supercar that […]

Jaguar Land Rover has announced it is cutting 450 staff.

British car manufacturers have won a four-year delay to the introduction of European rules designed to force them to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new cars. Jaguar Land Rover was granted a special deal after Britain joined ranks with other car-producing EU states to water down fuel efficiency targets proposed last year. The highest levels of fines for failing to comply with the targets will not come into force until 2019, not in 2015 as previously proposed. The deal means manufacturers will be able to delay investing in expensive carbon-reduction technology for several more years. MEPs and the 27 EU member states have agreed to abandon plans to force the industry to reduce average CO emissions from around 158g/km last year to 130g/km by 2012.

Jaguar Land Rover’s importance to the West Midlands has been spelled out as business minister Lord Mandelson considers a rescue package for the embattled UK car industry. The Indian-owned company is critical for the future of the region, according to Mick Laverty, chief executive of development agency Advantage West Midlands. And JLR chief executive David Smith urged the government to support the industry’s “jewel in the crown” with funds to help it to survive the recession and credit crisis. Mr Laverty and Mr Smith were speaking at a round table meeting held at a Birmingham restaurant that was hosted by government manufacturing adviser Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, head of the Warwick Manufacturing Group. He claimed that JLR would have “gone into thin air” in the present crisis had Ford sold it to private equity interests instead of Tata Motors of […]

Jaguar has joined a growing list of car makers to cut production as the credit squeeze and economic downturn continue to hit sales. The now Indian-owned company said it was responding to market conditions by “taking a little bit of volume” out of production of the flagship XJ sports saloon – the current model of which is likely to be replaced next year – and the XK sports car. Jaguar would not spell out the extent of the cuts at its Castle Bromwich factory in Birmingham, but The Birmingham Post understands that between 200 and 300 fewer cars will be built between now and the end of the year. That would equate to about a week’s worth of production for both the XJ and XK. Production of the XF saloon car, which has been a huge success since it was […]

Might the mighty Jaguar, once a consistent winner on the LeMans circuit be considering a return to the competition? According to Autoweek, Jaguar is doing just that – considering a return to LeMans. Supposedly the new Indian parent company, Tata Motors, is evaluating a high-profile motorsports comeback. “We want to hit the Le Mans race [because] we are examining how to bring the Jaguar brand back to its earlier position,” Tata chairman Ratan Tata told Indian media.

DEARBORN, Mich., April 20, 2008 – Geoff Polites, chief executive officer of Jaguar Land Rover, has died peacefully in his home country of Australia. He was 60. Mr. Polites, who is credited with leading the team that returned the Jaguar Land Rover business back to profitability and successfully steering it through its ongoing sale process to Tata Motors, had been battling serious illness for the past two years. “Geoff’s untimely passing robs his family and friends of a man who was a real inspiration to us all,” said Alan Mulally, president and chief executive officer, Ford Motor Company. “His drive and determination, combined with his clear sense of vision for the business, played a huge role in turning round the business at Jaguar Land Rover and returning it to profitability. Geoff ensured that Jaguar Land Rover was not distracted and […]

With the launch of the XF sedan and the deletion of the S-Type and X-Type from its U.S. lineup, Jaguar now offers cars in America powered only by V8 engines. The XF’s hard points come from the S-Type, which it replaces. But Jaguar is using the V8 engines, suspension, subframes, six-speed transmission, propeller shaft and differential from the upmarket XJ sedan and XK sports car. Despite all the parts scrounging, the XF has little in common with the rest of the Jaguar lineup or its predecessor. This could be the car that carries Jaguar into the modern age and out of the wood-and-leather ghetto.

Car giant Ford has sold its luxury UK-based car brands Jaguar and Land Rover to Indian company Tata. Tata, India’s biggest vehicle maker, is paying $2.3bn for the British brands after months of negotiations over price and supply relationships. The irony of one time colonies buying and selling the automotive crown jewels Britain has not gone un-noticed. The negotiations started last June when Ford announced its intention to sell the companies as a package. Jaguar and Land Rover employ about 16,000 staff at UK plants in the West Midlands and Merseyside. Although Land Rover remains profitable, Ford has never managed to make money from its investment in Jaguar. Ford has been forced to sell the two companies in order to concentrate on its loss-making core US car business, which it hopes to turn around in the next two years. It […]

While I am as green as the next person, or maybe even more so, this just seems wrong on so many levels. The British cabinet is debating replacing their Jaguars with the hybrid Prius. As the Financial Times reports, “Gordon Brown’s cabinet clashed yesterday over whether to replace British-built ministerial cars with Japanese Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles, amid new evidence that the government is failing to live up to its green rhetoric. John Hutton, the business secretary, led the criticism of the plan to import more cars from Japan rather than use traditional British vehicles, saying it sent out a bad signal to domestic manufacturers.” Sad, very sad. You can read the full article at the Financial Times site.

Ford is on the verge of selling Jaguar to Indian company Tata after failing to see a return on its investment after nearly 20 years. What caused the British luxury car maker’s decline? When the Ford Motor Company acquired Jaguar in 1989, the American giant was aiming for a slice of the lucrative European luxury-car business – with ambitions to snatch sales from the dominant Germans. Nearly 20 years later, however, Jaguar has yet to post a profit, its sales continue to shrink, and the British brand is about to be offloaded to giant Indian company Tata.

Jaguar intends to become a copycat by following Porsche’s sales strategy of selling fewer cars with higher profit margins. The British luxury-car brand has targeted the German sports car maker’s successful business formula after years of losses and underperforming sales under American owner Ford. Jaguar, along with sister company Land Rover, is on the verge of being sold to Indian company Tata, a transition that is unlikely to change plans to abandon the previous (Ford) strategy of chasing big volumes. At the launch of the car maker’s new XF model in Monaco, Jaguar’s design director and senior figurehead Ian Callum said the successor to the S-Type signalled a fresh approach for the brand. “Our aim now as a luxury brand is to aim for about 100,000 units a year, not 200,000 or 300,000,” he said. “That’s about the right size […]

An entry list of 27 cars has been revealed for the 2008 Avon Tyres British GT Championship featuring 19 cars in GT3 and eight in the new GT4 class. Defending champions RPM will run two cars in the GT3 class and also expand into GT4 with a further three cars. Former BTCC race-winner Paul O’Neill will partner Steve Clark in the #1 entry while Nick Foster will be partnered by experienced youngster Oliver Bryant in the sister car. In GT4, the team will run three Ginetta G50s for the pairings of Steve Tandy/Phil Bailey, Joe Osbourne/Michael Broadhurst and Chris Cooke/James Harrison.

Tata Motors will announce its purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover on March 5 or 6. The dates have been agreed between Tata and Ford Motor Co., which is selling the two luxury brands, following talks with union leaders last week. Roger Maddison, national officer of Unite, the largest union in the UK auto industry, told Automotive News Europe that Tata had agreed to meet guarantees sought by union leaders. He said, “Everything seems fine as far as we are concerned; it’s just the lawyers working on it now.” Union leaders spoke with Ford and Tata to resolve final details before the drawing up of a memorandum of understanding for the sale.

Jaguar Cars Ltd. has taken 10,000 customer deposits globally for the upcoming XF sedan, including about 3,000 in the United States. That’s a promising start. Jaguar executives say they released the figures to show the impact of the XF even without advertising or cars available to test drive. Instead, Jaguar has combined dealer training with posh customer-only events. The company put together a 21-city road show with a few demo XFs in tow, training entire dealerships at once. Dealerships then conducted events for loyal customers and luxury intenders. Ken Gorin, owner of The Collection in Miami, has 80 sold orders from holding two events, one at the dealership and another in the Miami Design District. “I sold 30 XFs the first night,” Gorin says. “I haven’t seen a reaction like that since the (Porsche) Boxster came out. When people hear […]