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The sale of Jaguar and Land Rover will be completed at midday today following the finalisation of the complicated deal between Ford and India’s Tata Motors.
The Indian conglomerate has borrowed around £1.5bn to buy the two companies, but has consistently maintained it will not move production of Jaguars or Land Rovers to India, and will respect the brands’ British heritage.
Tata chairman Ratan Tata said his company will stick to the five-year investment plan for the UK factories in Halew...Read the full article

Just a few additional thoughts on what is a historic day. The news that TATA have tie-ups with the FIAT group brings a few possibilities. As the sale also includes the Rover name it would not be that difficult to substitute a Rover grill for a Lancia grill and re-launch Rover on the UK market again, might also help Lancia achieve a few sales as well, just a thought.

It is sad to see Ford give up on two companies which they have done so much to improve. However the takeover by Tata is to be welcomed. He is one of the world's most successful businessmen and he certainly has the financial muscle to develop both marques. In addition he has a good understanding of Britain and the British. So Welcome Mr Tata and the very best of luck.

Ford's biggest mistake was the Jaguar X type. They reduced the spacious floor pan of the Mondeo and gave us a car with little rear leg room. The styling was too retro but the biggest mistake was to say that it was based on the Mondeo. They should have said that the Mondeo was based on the Jaguar. Sales of both wuld have rocketed!

Does anyone mind Audi being largely based on VW's?

The reality of playing in all the sectors that Jaguar plays in is the investment required to design & engineer a vehicle that is competitive is the same for Merc, BMW, Audi and Jaguar. The price point is about the same for all players as well.Therefore if the investment and price point are the same what really counts is getting the volume to justify the investment. There's only two ways to solve this problem - drive the volume or cut the development costs. Reitzle left because he was pushing Ford towards more investment (i.e. making a better product) and pushing the volume. Ford went the other way and badge engineered the X-type (Mondeo) and the S-type (Lincoln LS of all things) and reduced the product quality - which drove down volume as hardly anyone wanted to buy these cars.Simple lesson is at the current Jaguar volumes you can't justify investing $4-5B in new products. Ford couldn't - they sold out. And before you all get on the Autocar bandwagon for the XF let's see some sales figures after six months. It's a reskin of the S-type with XK suspension and a funky interior...I remember Chrysler introduced a push button auto gearbox in the '70s...how many cars have one now?The segment volumes are pretty well fixed so Jaguar needs better product to takes sales off Merc, BMW and Audi. So can Tata? Will Tata? As a lot of the optimists say he's a very successful businessman. And very successful businessmen don't take bets of this magnitude...so what's in store? Under investment and milking the brands to exhaustion or massive investment in new platforms and technology a la Merc and BMW?

Me thinks it's the former...and another Rover within 5 years.

New money, new approach and a guy at the top who is not afraid to make decisions on new exciting models. After the lethargy of Ford, this has to be a great thing for both companies.

JLR uses predominantly Steel, with increasing use of Aluminium. Corus changed their name because as well as steel, they are increasingly producing Aluminium. Tata, therefore, have bought their british subsidiary a customer.

 Also, I remember reading an interview with Ratan Tata, in which he claimed to be the current manufacturer of JLR's tooling. So the most recently purchased equipment are Tata.

These two suppositions , together with others I think, make the purchase seem rather less of a gamble.

Sounds like good news! Jaguar and LR is finally breaking away from the constraints of Ford.

Jaguar's failure was mostly fords doing as they were too cautious and made many foolish decisions.

 1) The X-Type, while was good in theory, was poor in execution. Being based on the Mondeo was not so bad. Audi's A4 is based on the VW Passat and nobody makes a big deal about that (But Audi isn't stupid enough to actually promote it!!!) The X-Type's styling, packaging, etc were little to be desired.

 2) The F-Type roadster, Jaguar teased us with the sexy concept car and, at the last minute, canned it! BIG mistake! It was one of the first modern Jaguar many ppl actually lusted for. It would have sold by the bucket loads.

3) The F1 team - STUPID idea, enough said!

4) Retro style - a lot has been said about the retro styling of Jaguars. Just couldnt attract the people who were buying Mercedes, BMWs and Audis. Jaguar should've been a design leader. The S type was a disaster, styling wise. The XJ well looks like its over 40 years old and hasnt aged a day and the 'mini' XJ, the X type, was just wrong. I don't think any 3 series, A4 or C Class owner, in his/her right mind would trade their car for an X-Type. Maybe they'd buy one for their grandparents.