What’s happening with Jaguar?

Global sales is reduced to about 5000 a month.  In the 1980's to survive they needed to sell 300,000 cars a year.  Only Range Rover has been able to keep them afloat.  
  There are no new exiting cars on the horizon.  The one electric they have is old school.   Not really made by Jaguar in England ( made in Austria). The rest of their line has been around long enough to need updates and replacements. 
    Rumor has them closing 50 of 70 dealerships in England.   Plus raising prices to compete with Bentley. 
   What they will do here in the states?  I don't know.  We are 50% of their global sales. 

Does it matter at this point? It's just a badge owned by a corporation that they may slap on EV SUVs or they may sell to the Chinese.

The Jaguars they built at Browns Lane are long gone.

What’s happening with Jaguar?  Unfortunately, it seems their executive leadership is asking the same question.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

Does it matter at this point? It's just a badge owned by a corporation that they may slap on EV SUVs or they may sell to the Chinese.

The Jaguars they built at Browns Lane are long gone.

 Since my first introduction to Jaguar race cars at age 14 I've found them an inexpensive way to go racing.  But really without Lyons touch I haven't had any axcitemeng about them.  

Five years ago I rented a Camaro in Nashville but I was too tall so they tossed me a Jaguar Sedan AWD 4-cylinder turbo car.  I was jacked up - at the time a $45-$55,000 Jaguar?

After wailing on it through the Smokey mountains on my way to Albertville, Alabama in the end I was convinced if you peeled off the badges it could've been a nicer Chevrolet Impala.  

That's an issue - a Jaguar should be impressive and they do have $100,000+ models that are cool but shouldn't todays $50-$60,000 Jag be sweet AF?

Is it wrong that BRG paint be a $600 adder?

They've been subpar for years?

I mean that not as in they're trash. I love my Jag. But there are enough other marques that provide the same image with better dealer networks, better advertising, more reliable drivetrains, wholly similar styling... etc

Hard to make a living building cars unless you either provide a broad range of options for a broad range of lifestyles, or have strong government support. Considering they have always been a niche builder of high end performance cars they have actually stuck around for a long time. If they had not been picked up as a side brand by BMC and Ford they would be long gone. 

I see they are looking for a half billion dollar grant to build a battery factory so they must at least plan to stick around. Unless that is just for the Land Rover side. 

Surprised nobody has blamed Ford yet.  

To me, it sounds like they continued doing what they were doing when Ford owned them, but Tata doesn't have enough money to keep letting them do that.  When I started working, I thought highly of Jag, and then I experienced working with them, and lost every little bit of that.  I saw first hand what put them into a situation that they were cheap for Ford to get, and saw it continue that pretty much force their sale to Tata.  

Basically, they always wanted to put the most expensive and complicated engineering on their vehicles, and do it cheaply.  Winning combination there.

I know Ford didn't always do the right thing, I get that.  But IMHO, Jag dug their own hole, and could not get out.

In reply to frenchyd :

There it is, it's Ford's fault.  Good job.

Sorry, but my first hand experience is very different from the one you perceive.  

frenchyd said:

Actually they were profitable on their own but with BLMH  taking every bit of their operating Capitol  they could no longer  continue.  
   The reason Sr William ( Lyons)  sold Jaguar  to BLMH  in the first place was they were stamping out Jaguar bodies and threatened to stop. At the Time Jaguar was in debt over a million dollars from the V12 introduction.  With his son  dead and no heirs it seemed his only move at the time,  
 So Jaguar bought themselves back from BLMH  and started to introduce new models and engines.   
     BMW wanted to partner up with Jaguar, but then GM became interested in them.  Which excited Ford to make a really silly offer.   At well over 2 times  it's real value.  
   Ford came in and did typical Ford stuff, forgetting that the most expensive Ford product, the Lincoln sold for only 1/3 of what Jaguars did.   When Jaguar management tried to explain why Jaguar sold for so much compared to domestics cars.   They simply failed to understand. Replaced all the Jaguar people with Ford people  and well, it's gone downhill from there.  

Read your post again and ask yourself how long ago that was.  What happened to them?  They've been in a coma for 50 plus years.

My view is that they can't/couldn't figure out what they want to be.  On one hand one of their biggest selling points is their classic heritage and styling.  Despite their issues, many people of all ages look at older XJ's from the 60-90's, or the classic E type etc as the definition of Jaguar, British class and style, but they've forgoten that.

The problem for me started with the S type, which tried too hard to be retro, but unlike things like the Audi TT, MINI, Ford GT, BMW Z8, it came out as lumpy and ill proportioned.  It was relatively well received by many at the time, but it hasn't aged well and I never liked it.  Then they tried to force classic Jaguar styling on a Ford Mondeo and made it look ungainly and cheap.  After failing at the (at the time) still very popular retro craze they then decided to doubled down on their new modern look for the XE and XF.  The problem is it came out with a bland generic look that has no real visual queues to the past.  You may not like modern Merc., Audi, BMW styling, but you line up their products over the years and you have a logical, easily visualized link the their own design language.  Jaguar have lost their svelte proportions, and their attempts at a corporate 'Jaguar' grill could easily be from a Chinese knock off brand trying to ape Infinity or Audi. 

Both the XK and later XF are certainly excellent GT cars, but that class of car will never sell in sufficient numbers to keep a whole brand afloat unless you're playing in the $100K+ starting point. 

When it came to SUV's they have a basic problem that their sister brand Land Rover, and Range Rover, already own that segment of the luxury SUV market.  Their isn't enough to make the bland corporate styling SUV's stand out.  When Porsche launched the Cayenne, or Audi their various Q models those vehicles all used the corporate styling clues and it's obvious what they are from a distance.  Take any current Jag, park it 100 yards away and paint it silver with no badges and I bet you couldn't identify it.  Do the same with an Audi, BMW, or Merc. and I guarantee you'll know what it is.

Then add in the usual lack of cash for product development endemic to the British auto industry (yes I know it's now Indian, but it's still the same mentality underneath) and their products are simply outclassed by the opposition.  Without the emotional styling, heritage link, they are slowly sinking.

As a life long Jaguar fan it saddens me, but I'm not seeing a rosy future for them.

Oh, and Frenchy, suitability for low buck club racing has less than zero effect on public opinion of a luxury brand.  

Frenchy, Ford flat out saved Jaguar when they bought them.  You can retroactively try and put the blame on Ford, but the truth is their product line was ancient, they had horrible reliability, the bodies were chronically complicated to build compared with modern techniques etc.  And while there's a lot of BS talked about Lucas and British automobile electronics, the sad truth is simply that, it's based on truth.  Look at Jaguar sales, quality and products in the decade after Ford took over.  The XJ got a new monocoque that was stiffer, safer, lighter with way fewer components.  The old XJ40, despite being touted as all new in 86 still owed a lot to the original 68 XJ, and the suspension and engines all dated from the 40/50's (OK, the IRS was technically 61, but was in development in the 50's).   Sales grew dramatically from when Ford investment started through early this century where Ford started to go off the rails.  Quality went from a laughing stock to one of the best by the late 90's.  I've got zero doubt that without Ford (or another large OEM buying them), Jaguar would not have survived the early 90's downturn that nearly killed Porsche etc.  

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

Frenchy, Ford flat out saved Jaguar when they bought them.  You can retroactively try and put the blame on Ford, but the truth is their product line was ancient, they had horrible reliability, the bodies were chronically complicated to build compared with modern techniques etc.  And while there's a lot of BS talked about Lucas and British automobile electronics, the sad truth is simply that, it's based on truth.  Look at Jaguar sales, quality and products in the decade after Ford took over.  The XJ got a new monocoque that was stiffer, safer, lighter with way fewer components.  The old XJ40, despite being touted as all new in 86 still owed a lot to the original 68 XJ, and the suspension and engines all dated from the 40/50's (OK, the IRS was technically 61, but was in development in the 50's).   Sales grew dramatically from when Ford investment started through early this century where Ford started to go off the rails.  Quality went from a laughing stock to one of the best by the late 90's.  I've got zero doubt that without Ford (or another large OEM buying them), Jaguar would not have survived the early 90's downturn that nearly killed Porsche etc.  

Gm had looked at buying Jaguar before and realized there was basically nothing worthwhile buying there except maybe one engine and was more then happy to allow ford to pay tons of money for the company.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

Oh I give them full credit for the good things they did.  You mentioned them well.  But they also used Jaguar to try to get back into Formula 1  that's  where their billions went.  
 Setting that aside,  trying to badge engineer English Fords  into Jaguars, hurt the brand.  When Tata  bought Jaguar from Ford I understand it was just slightly over the write off Ford could have taken.    It had nothing to do with actual market value.   Tata fully intended to make Jaguar shine.   But the market just wasn't ready. 
     The truth is sports cars were over by the 1980's.   Hot hatch backs and sporty sedans replaced them.  
   The tiny handful of enthusiasts willing to buy a sports car ( different from a sporty personal car) could be well served by Miata on the low end and Corvette on the high end. 

I'm curious why they didn't come out with an SUV until very recently.  They should have had an SUV since 2000, maybe even earlier, when that market was clearly growing each year.  I do not care at all about "but Jag was not about SUV's" as it's a brand and each brand should have a foot in the hottest market segment OR should be considered boutique only and is supported by a sister with SUV's.  Which would make Jag a loss-leader or JLR and I don't think it would work here at all.  But that's basically how they're operating.

Honestly, though, a "where did Jag go wrong?" case study just isn't interesting to me.  I'm more interested in where AMC when wrong.  Or DeLorean Motoros.  This just sounds like typical British middle management not responding to changing times + deference to whoever is on the next rung up that ladder.  It's boring. 

There is nothing really wrong with a really nice Ford with a Jaguar badge, except for the fact that you could also badge it as a Mustang or a Lincoln or even a Tata Premiere and nobody would really care. They are good modern cars, but not really something that inspires passion. You can get the same from just about any brand these days.

Vintage Jaguars are a different kind of cat.

The problem with "a really nice Ford with Jag badges" is that the build quality and general ownership experience doesn't seem as good (I haven't owned one, I'm speaking from a position of perceived quality as an outsider).  Also, what other Fords shared platforms with a Jag besides the X-type, which seems like a fairly awful car?  I can't imagine a case where I would have paid for an X-type, and dealt with Jag dealers and service to own one, when the Mercury Milan was sitting right there.  Or something else entirely. 

If I had Berk-off money I could see looking for a creampuff F-type convertible with the V6 and a manual trans.  I think they looked amazing, sound amazing, and would be fun to own if I didn't care about servicing and insurance costs.  But I don't.  Not a lot of other cars in Jag's lineup that can't be replicated with another brand that seems better at supporting the product.

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

I'm curious why they didn't come out with an SUV until very recently. 

Simple $$$$$$$

Porsche were massively criticized for launching the Cayenne in 2002.  People were merrily predicting a failure and watering down of the brand.  By the time it became apparent that the Cayenne was going to be a hit, and that premium sedan and sports car manufacturers not only could make SUV's, but needed to make SUV's, Ford had run out of patience with pouring $$ down the drain, and Tata never had the money to do it.

Despite all the turmoil Jag has gone through in the last 20 years, I would happily take a 04-09 Supercharged XJR even with all of it's problems. It has the classic jag look, some decent power, and a plush interior. 

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

Frenchy, Ford flat out saved Jaguar when they bought them.  You can retroactively try and put the blame on Ford, but the truth is their product line was ancient, they had horrible reliability, the bodies were chronically complicated to build compared with modern techniques etc.  And while there's a lot of BS talked about Lucas and British automobile electronics, the sad truth is simply that, it's based on truth.  Look at Jaguar sales, quality and products in the decade after Ford took over.  The XJ got a new monocoque that was stiffer, safer, lighter with way fewer components.  The old XJ40, despite being touted as all new in 86 still owed a lot to the original 68 XJ, and the suspension and engines all dated from the 40/50's (OK, the IRS was technically 61, but was in development in the 50's).   Sales grew dramatically from when Ford investment started through early this century where Ford started to go off the rails.  Quality went from a laughing stock to one of the best by the late 90's.  I've got zero doubt that without Ford (or another large OEM buying them), Jaguar would not have survived the early 90's downturn that nearly killed Porsche etc.  

I remember reading that when Ford took over Mazda, Mazda had all the tooling to build their own V12 from their Amati luxury brand that they tried to roll out right as the Japanese real estate bubble burst. Tooling was completely unused, they'd never built any. Someone at Ford went "Jeez, Mazda is really circling the drain, can't we do something?" Apparently there was talk of retiring the old Jag V12 and having Mazda build a nice, new, modern 4.0L v12 for Jag, but the Jag purists screamed bloody murder at the idea of Jaguars with a Mazda-built V12. The tooling was dusted off briefly when Mazda built the Project A007, which was basically the Aston Marton Rapide a decade and a half earlier (V12 luxury sport sedan with FD3S RX-7 suspension), and ultimately scrapped.

Stampie said:

frenchyd said:

Actually they were profitable on their own but with BLMH  taking every bit of their operating Capitol  they could no longer  continue.  
   The reason Sr William ( Lyons)  sold Jaguar  to BLMH  in the first place was they were stamping out Jaguar bodies and threatened to stop. At the Time Jaguar was in debt over a million dollars from the V12 introduction.  With his son  dead and no heirs it seemed his only move at the time,  
 So Jaguar bought themselves back from BLMH  and started to introduce new models and engines.   
     BMW wanted to partner up with Jaguar, but then GM became interested in them.  Which excited Ford to make a really silly offer.   At well over 2 times  it's real value.  
   Ford came in and did typical Ford stuff, forgetting that the most expensive Ford product, the Lincoln sold for only 1/3 of what Jaguars did.   When Jaguar management tried to explain why Jaguar sold for so much compared to domestics cars.   They simply failed to understand. Replaced all the Jaguar people with Ford people  and well, it's gone downhill from there.  

Read your post again and ask yourself how long ago that was.  What happened to them?  They've been in a coma for 50 plus years.

Lol, he asks a question and then proceeds to tell us the answer.

Whats up with Jaguar? its time to move on from it.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

Porsche != Jaguar.  Fairly certain that the Cayenne was the first Porsche with more than two doors.  Porsche beating Jag to the SUV punch is just bad decision making.  And mother Ford had platforms to base something on.  It seems odd that JLR figured out how to do this under Tata and not Ford.

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

The problem with "a really nice Ford with Jag badges" is that the build quality and general ownership experience doesn't seem as good (I haven't owned one, I'm speaking from a position of perceived quality as an outsider).  Also, what other Fords shared platforms with a Jag besides the X-type, which seems like a fairly awful car?  I can't imagine a case where I would have paid for an X-type, and dealt with Jag dealers and service to own one, when the Mercury Milan was sitting right there.  Or something else entirely. 

If I had Berk-off money I could see looking for a creampuff F-type convertible with the V6 and a manual trans.  I think they looked amazing, sound amazing, and would be fun to own if I didn't care about servicing and insurance costs.  But I don't.  Not a lot of other cars in Jag's lineup that can't be replicated with another brand that seems better at supporting the product.

The Jaguar s type Lincoln ls and ford thunderbird convertible all used the same platform.