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Subscribe to this threadReport: Tata to get full stake in Jaguar and Land Rover
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Playdrv4me @ Jan 30th 2008 2:13PM
This is pretty much the beginning of the end for Land Rover. Any credibility the brand gained when it was owned by Ford will be lost for nothing other than the ignorant consumers who will associate Indian ownership with a cheapened product.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Selling Land Rover to raise firesale cash is among the stupidest decisions Ford has ever made and it just goes to show the schizophrenic mentality of the leadership there now.
Selling Jaguar? Fine, they DID ALOT to improve its reliability, but it never sold well. The only mistake they made there was NOT selling it to BRITISH OWNED JCB Construction when they had the chance, who would have maintained Jaguar's british heritage in a way no Indian firm (or American for that matter) possibly can.
Selling Aston Martin was only a *semi*-dumb move because it had only JUST started making money, was a niche' brand, and they still retained a portion of it anyway. But Land Rover had been turning a profit for awhile, skated through pretty-well unscathed in the Ford take-over, and was producing some genuinely DESIRABLE products with VASTLY improved reliability over their older counterparts. SUV's are STILL the in-thing with the nuvo-riche crowd and they don't particularly care about fuel economy. Thus, the market for these vehicles was still wide open.
As an owner of a 2003 Range Rover, this is a very sad day for the LR brand indeed. It's like when they put a Wal-mart next to your house and the property value on your whole block goes down.
For the record, it wasn't just the engines Ford bought from BMW, the ENTIRE engineering and chassis architecture of the 2003-2005 was entirely BMW through and through, including virtually the entire interior. Not only that, Ford acquired the former BMW chief of the entire Range Rover project at that same time. It was a practical giveaway to Ford, which is another reason it's absolutely idiotic to firesale it.