After setting up its Premium Automotive Group back in the late '90s, Ford built the luxury über-division an award-winning, shiny new facility in Irvine, California in 2001, far away from the parent company's influence in Dearborn, Michigan, as the American hub for the predominantly European group. Since then, however, PAG has been slowly dwindling away, as Lincoln was separated from the group, Aston Martin was recently sold off and Jaguar and Land Rover are on the verge of departure, as well. Once those two brands are gone, only Volvo will remain. Now the last remaining PAG constituent is moving its U.S. operations to Rockleigh, New Jersey.
The shift to the East Coast for Volvo is expected to cut overhead and increase the overlap in working hours with PAG's headquarters in England and Volvo HQ in Sweden, but puts another nail in the coffin of former Ford CEO Jacques Nasser's grand vision of a profit-generating luxury enterprise. Witness one more burned-out star saying goodbye to Hollywood.
[Source: Automotive News – sub. req'd]
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