Archive for Jaguar

The latest company rumoured to be interested in buying Volvo and Land Rover from Ford is Magna. Well, not exactly the two brands, but they’re more interested in the plants that belong to the two brands.

Auto Motor und Sport reports that Magna wants to use the plants of the two marques to build models from other companies, which will help achieve full capacity. All that unused plant capacity lying around is a wasted investment anyway. Magna does contract assembly - it’s subsidiary Magna Steyr manufactures the current generation BMW X3 in Austria but lost the job to assemble the next gen X3.

While Ford has hired Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and HSBC to evaluate the future of it’s Jaguar and Land Rover brands, effectively putting them on the table for possible sale, it hasn’t said anything about possibly selling Volvo. Volvo seems to be doing well recently, reporting that it is heading for a record amount of cars sold globally, despite a slowdown in major markets like Germany and the US. Sales are expected to surpass the previous 456,000 unit record in 2004.

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The latest whispers being passed around dinner tables in the automotive industry are that Jaguar and Land Rover are currently on the table, and potential buyers are Fiat. It seems that talks started in February this year but ended last month, with no resolution. Sources say the talks were dropped because Fiat was concerned on how the Jaguar would affect Fiat’s credit rating. Fiat would have benefited from Jaguar’s rear wheel drive platforms if the sale had gone through.

With rumours of BMW being interested in Volvo, and most of Aston Martin shares recently being sold, it seems Ford Motor Co is looking to offload all of it’s Premier Automotive Group (PAG) brands.

PAG lost US$327 million before taxes last year, it’s third loss in a row for three years. Jaguar has lost the most money apparently, a total of between US$500 million to US$1 billion since 2001. Land Rover has gained traction recently though, pardon the pun

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Another bit of fun with advertising, this is one of BMW’s ads in Spain. Putting a play on the phrase “scaredy cat”, it shows the trademark Jaguar hood ornament running away in fear from a BMW in a face-off.

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Here are photos of the Jaguar C-XF Concept leaked ahead of it’s unveiling at the upcoming North American International Auto Show, only two weeks away. The concept shown here looks like it has alot of square-ish hardedges unlike previous Jaguar design language which usually consists of smooth curves all round. It’s funny how car design has went from hard edges to smooth edges back to hard edges.

I can see a less busier version of this going into production as the Jaguar XF - it has got to lose those musclecar-like bulges on the hood, less complicated front and rear bumpers, as well as less bling-like alloy wheels.

More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of Jaguar C-XF Concept: S-Type Replacement

Jaguar’s mid-sized luxury sedan contender, the S-type will now be called the Jaguar XF. To be built at Jaguar’s Jaguar’s Advanced Manufacturing Centre at Castle Bromwich in Birmingham, UK and set to be released in late 2007, it unifies Jaguar’s model naming conventions - it already has new models called the XJ, XK and the XKR.

No shots of the actual model are available yet, so let’s have a look at the Jaguar R-D6 Concept showcased in the year 2003, featuring an S-type-like grille, and Jaguar’s lightweight structure stretegy. The R-D6 weighs only 1,500kg, light for it’s size, makig it easy for it’s 2.7 liter twin turbodiesel’s 230hp and 500Nm of torque to push it along.

More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of New Jaguar S-Type to be called Jaguar XF

Rumours through the grapevines indicated that Hyundai’s Kia unit might be the new owner of Ford’s struggling Jaguar brand, and perhaps even Land Rover. This might be bad news for Jaguar fans, you might see new Jaguar sedans based on the Kia Amanti or something. The Kia Amanti already looks very suspiciously like a Jaguar S-Type. And most of you know the Jaguar butt of the previous generation Hyundai Sonata.

Anyway, there were talks of this, but Hyundai has come out and informed media that yes there was an internal study done on the feasibility of acquiring a luxury marque like Jaguar from Ford Motor Co but it was ruled out because Hyundai decided it needed to focus on expanding production instead.

Unlike Jaguar, Ford’s other two luxury brands - Land Rover which makes luxury SUVs and Aston Martin which makes luxury sports cars - were profitable in 2005.