TStag

This is not going to be a problem for Land Rover or Jaguar because the EU talks about an average emmisions target across a car makers entire range. So providing Ford keeps shifting Ka's and Fiesta's then they can ofset Land Rover's and Jags improving Co2 emmisions. By 2012 Land Rover will be introducing much more environmentally friendly cars anyway (e.g made out of aluminium, stop/ start technology, hybrids, etc).

No don't do it! Ford should simply use Land Rover hand me downs to take on Jeep. Land Rover is invincible at the moment at the top end, Volvo and Cadilac are covering the mid end, Ford can cover the lower end. In Europe Jeep always used to be regarded as a competitor to Land Rover because of the way they were priced over here. But Land Rover has really hamered all the nails into Jeeps coffin in Europe as the product is about a billion times better. SUV's from Volvo and BMW haven't helped either. Personally I think Renault/ Nissan will attempt to buy it.

The Chinese bought MG...

Has GM ever heard of a company called British Leyland? BL united the sucessfull Rover, Land Rover, Triumph, MG, Jaguar, Leyland Trucks brands with the less sucessfull Austin, Morris, Wolseley brands in the UK and in simple terms it all went horribly wrong within a decade, so that only Land Rover, Rover, Jaguar and MG was left. The BL story says it all.

Well the plot thickens according to a journalist over on a Rover forum Land Rover stylists are now being sent in to 'finish some Lincoln projects'. Land Rover engineers and stylists are being used elsewhere in Ford because they aren't scheduled to start work on any other big LAND ROVER projects for another 3 years! (which incedentally is bizare in itself). Is it true that Lincoln actually sold less cars in 2006 than Rover did in it's last year as a car maker? My figures say that Lincoln only sold 120 000 units. Whereas Rover shipped 150 000 units with a product range that was betwenn 7 and 15 yeard old! If that's true then that is shocking. No wonder Ford are thinking of using the Rover brand. Perhaps Land Rover engineers and designers are the people to take charge at Lincoln with sales figures like that. Maybe Ford will close Lincoln if they can't generate sales outside the USA? No one in Europe would survive on sales figures like that. Rover makes a lot of sense if you just look at Lincoln's awfull numbers.

Iv'e been talking to some pals of mine who are very closeley connected to Land Rover. Apparantly Land Rover are working on plans to relaunch Rover. According to my source Rover is interesting to Ford Europe for a number of reasons: 1.) 200,000 Rover owners in the UK are looking to replace their Rover's with Rover's. 2.) Dealers are having to fight people off as customers are desparate to source new ones (brand loyalty seems strong) 3.) Rover had strong sales in Spain and elsewhere in Europe 4.) Rover could be a good sister brand to Land Rover. 5.) Some Lincolns could go to Europe as Rover's. 6.) Lots of possiblities for Niche products. 7.) Rover tradionally sits between Ford and Volvo in pricing, so lots of components sharing possible. 8.) 10 years ago, with a decent product range Rover held a 15% market share in the UK alone, which BMW destroyed in only 5 years. So there is potential Apparantly Ford have been asked directly by the Times newspaper if they have any plans to relaunch Rover and the offical line is no comment. But one exec at Dearbourn admitted that Ford are toying with the idea. So nothing definate, but it looks like Ford Europe may be trying to boost profits by using the Rover brand and Land Rover dealers. Can't wait I really miss Rover. :-)

I kind of agree but if Ford was doing well would it still be selling Aston? I doubt it....

I think a LWB version for the US market would make sense. In Europe a model to sit below the Freelander would also sell well. But why stop there? Surely a Pickup would sell in the USA and a lower to the ground Crossover could also do well.

...Land Rover. According to my local news paper Land Rover is celebrating because it looks as though they are the only Ford brand to grow their market share in the USA. Even Mazda saw sales drop it seems. Land Rover have even bucked the market and are the only 4x4 maker to see sales increasing over the full 12 months of 2006. They are also feeling pretty chipper because US sales have now overtaken UK sales, despite the fact that the Freelander wasn't being sold in the USA due to a shortage of engines. So one question springs to mind. Why on earth aren't Ford expanding Land Rover more quickly? We will have to wait another 3 years before Land Rover even starts developing the new baby Landie. Why the wait? We want this car now! And why aren't Ford thinking Premium Land Rover Pickups for the USA or Luxury cars using the Range Rover brand. Come on Ford. Land Rover is your most exciting brand at the moment. We want more Land Rovers please! Stop mucking about with cars that won't sell and give us cars that will sell.

To my way of thinking the existing S type looks like more of a limo than the forthcoming XF. So I wonder if there would be some value in freshing up the S type and then rebadging it as a Daimler. Whilst volumes may not be anything to write home about I suspect that the XF and exisiting S type share enough common components to make this a potentially profitable excercise. In the Longer term it may even allow Daimler to go after the big limo market and Jaguar after the sportier side of things. Just a thought but I quite like the S type and it seems a shame to kill it off so easily when it could get a couple years more life.

My point is that Lincoln is looking increasingly unviable because it only really sells cars in the USA. If you compare Land Rover sales to Lincolns sales globally then you would see that Land Rover is miles ahead. Yet bizarely Land Rover could be sold and Lincoln retained. So rather than obsessing about fixing PAG why doesn't Ford start at home by making cars that Lincoln that can sell outside the USA. Once again I would remind Ford that they now own the Rover brand. All Lincoln need to do is build a car like the Chyrsler 300c and slap a Rover badge and grill on it for Europe and their sales figures could rise significantly. Otherwise if Lincoln aren't carefull then they continue to see the competition grow at home and sales drop. Ultimately if Lincoln's sales figures get any worse then Ford may well consider axing them and letting Land Rover and Jag move into sell alongside Mercuries. Why not? They could axe a few more unprofitable plants and still sell lots of premium motors.

Okay time to be a bit controversial. PAG is all of a sudden looking good and even Jaguar is starting to turn the corner. The XF concept looks like a winner and the XK is sold out. Land Rover is booming and Volvo is looking good. Aston is also flying high. But Ford USA is bleeding cash and doing badly. PAG needs money to grow and make more money. Lincoln is just a US brand with no international sales ambitions and will ultimately just bleed market share to PAG, BMW, Merc, Lexus et al. At a time when the competion grows their market share internationally and spends even more money developing their cars (last Range Rover cost 1 billion pounds to develop). Given the fact that Lincoln has no international growth ambitions then why not just flog it to someone who will invest in it? Or if it can't be sold why not even consider shutting it and splitting the dealer network up between the PAG brands. Ford would probably make more money that way. For what it's worth I don't think this is the answer, but it highlights some interesting points. Why is Ford contemplating selling bits of PAG when clearly they are thinking internationally. And why don't Ford build Lincoln models for export? The best of it is this. Ford own the Rover brand. They have hundreds of Land Rover dealers all over the globe. Why not simply make a car the size of a BMW 3 series with a Rover Grill and badge on and export? People in the UK are familiar with the tarnished Rover brand, but get the car right and the British public will buy it if sold by Land Rover as a Rover. If Lincoln isn't likely to sell outside the US then quite frankly Ford should swing the axe here and not at PAG. Ford USA needs to show sme metal. The Mustang is a great start by Ford. But Mercury and Lincoln need to keep their end up!

Hang on Ford Europe is said to be a sucess but Land Rover is rumoured to be much more profitable. Surely Ford's biggest headache will be how to expand PAG and grow profitability whilst giving Ford USA the kiss of life. I guess one option would be to sell PAG UK to Toyota, whom I hear are doing quite a lot of sniffing around at the moment. Toyota could integrate PAG UK into Toyota's highly efficient UK op's. For Toyota this would be one hell of a good move, for Ford it would reduce their debt mountain and for PAG UK they would probably just do what all Toyota companies are doing and outsell all the competition...

Jacques Nasser has taken some stick for building PAG as to many people it is just a part of Ford that has more rough times than good times. But consider where Ford are at now with PAG: - Aston Martin making strong profits - Volvo - made first loss in 10 years but is set to bounce back strongly in 2007 with new models - Land Rover - was it ever really unprofitable? Sure years of underinvestment was a problem which resulted in badly built models but now Land Rover is on track to become the second most profitable Ford company after Mazda! - Jaguar - the one area where things went wrong. Ford fixed the quality/ reliabilty problems but got the styling badly wrong. Now it's fighting back with the strong selling XK and a concept in the XF which will go down well in Europe if built. Better still the X type is now making a profit because it goes down the same production lines as the new Freelander! Maybe Ford will replace it after all? All in all things are looking better and better at PAG. If Ford really show the bottle that they need to show, then they will accelerate Land Rover's exciting expansion plans as this really could generate mega, mega bucks. Finally if Ford do turn Jag around in the way I'm predicting then Ford may at long last have an answer to BMW and co. So was Jacques Nasser right? Yes, probably. But did he underestimate the effort required. Absolutley. P.S If anyone at Ford is reading this then please can you build those new Landies as I really, really want one. But 2014 is a seriously long time to have to wait.....please prettty please with a possible deposit on top...

I agree. But assuming they keep Jag & LR, Halewood has recently been reconfigured so that X types and Freelanders can go down the same line. Once the X type disappears then it would make sense to send a car that actually has something in common with the Freelander down the same production lines.

It uses the new Freelanders floorpan so I am guessing that when the Jaguar X type leaves Halewood then the new Volvo xc60 will slot straight into it's place... No where near as nice looking as the Freelander mind.

That's more like it! Can we have a Europeanised version with a Rover badge on it?

...I simply don't get it. The Japanese and the Europeans sell cars into America with few changes and few problems. But whenever US car makers try this in reverse they meet with very little sucess. Having said that Chyrsler and Dodge are starting to do okay in Europe now, particually with the new Caliber. Mind you it's so cheap I don't know how they make a profit on it....

To be fair Europe does make the best Luxury cars. The only competion from outside Europe is Lexus and they are soooo boring. All Lexus trade on is reliability, but companies like Mercedes compete on desirability in looks, prestige and all round class. No one outside Europe seems to make a model, that looks erm Classy. The British will buy a car from anywhere and can't be considered insular in their car buying tastes. The simple fact is that Europe has tended to excel at Luxury. Whilst the rest of the world has excelled at volume. Surely the simple answer is to make a model that is the size of a 3 series and styled towards European and Asian tastes (or just plain bland like a Lexus). Then airfix a Rover badge on the front. Pretend it's European and watch the sales build over time. Put simply if Lincoln doesn't export it's cars and find new markets, then it will die because all the competion are upping their game and are generating revenue from accross the globe. Hell Lincoln should see the Rover brand as Xmas come early. European recognition and direct access to a Land Rover dealer network in Europe makes it something of a no brainer in my opinion.

As a European I simply don't get Lincoln and the way in which it sets about developing and growing it's business. Someone said earlier that handeling wasn't so important because the US has a lot of straight roads. But how on earth can Lincoln hope to grow any kind of intenational business by making cars that can't go round corners? BMW and Merc would make mincemeat of them over here. In fact all Lincoln is saying is, we won't export we will defend our home market instead. That is a completley unrealistic stance to take in this day and age. Put simply why can't Licolns do everything a Beemer can? Hell Ford own Jaguar can't they ask them for help in the cornering department? One of the other problems I think Lincoln has is that they are almost too American to export. Don't get me wrong Lincoln must make cars for the American market first, but surely where Lincoln is making a car that is meant to take on the 3 series then surely it must try and be a little more international in it's looks. Finally Licoln have a great opportunity to grow sales in Europe. Thanks to Fords recent purchase of the Rover brand Lincoln could restlye and rebadge some models for Europe and use the Land Rover dealer network. Selling Rover's in a Land Rover dealership is very logical after all. Sure Rover as a brand will require sometime to rebuild, but providing the cars are good then there is no reason why Lincoln couldn't get into Europe quickly.

As someone who isn't that familiar with Ford USA I was just wondering why Lincoln doesn't make an attempt to sell it's cars outside the US? Sure it's products may not be right for Europe just yet but if Ford wants to make money then should it not try to give Lincoln more international products? Best yet as Ford just bought the Rover brand why not ship Lincolns to Europe under the well known Rover monkier? With Land Rover they even have a ready built European dealer network. It may take time to rebuild the Rover brand but if all you are doing is rebadging Lincoln cars and fiddling with componenets then over the course of a decade some real progress could be made at reducing Lincoln's costs and improving their sales figures.

From what I've heard Ford are rejecting bids from other car makers (including BMW) and are now actually trying to hang on to a big piece of Aston so that they can buy it back when things improve. I also read in Autocar that Geeley put in a big bid but Ford refused to sell to them because they were worried at what the Chinese would do with such a high tech company...

Selling a high profit margin company like Aston Martin doesn't seem particually clever, 40 companies seem to agree and I really wouldn't be surprised to see another big car maker get it. As for Jag/ Land Rover, imagine what a difference a slinky new S type (xf) could make. If sucessfull Jag would probably make a profit and combined with Land Rover could even start to look like the most successfull part of Ford. There is a fine line between sucess and failure in this sector of the market and Ford can't afford to get it wrong at Jag.....

As a European I find it strange that Ford has American brands like Lincoln which they seem to make no effort at all to sell in Europe. What I find even stranger is that they have car platforms that are used in the US only and they seem to be really quite backwards in using these elsewhere. 2 big mistakes Ford should really start to correct: We European reguarly state that we want Ford to sell us Mustang's. In fact it's one of the few American cars we really want. Surf the net and look in on other forums and you will see many people say they want this model. Yet Ford don't sell it here. It just seems crazy! The second big mistake is that Ford make Lincolns with the sole intention of selling them to Americans. But Ford has just bought the Rover brand which it will file in a cabinet somewhere. Why not style Lincolns to be more European/ less American (maybe think Lexus) and ship it to Land Rover's European dealer network using the Rover or even Daimler brand. Don't use Lincoln 'cos luxury American brands simply don't tend to sell here and it would be bad news for Land Rover to sell alongside a brand like Lincoln. Basically message to Ford is market Local sell Global.

..has Ford totally lost the plot? As of this year Land Rover is Ford's 2nd most profitable automotive division after Mazda? And unless I'm dreaming this, didn't Volvo make a loss whlst Aston Martin made a profit? In addition isn't Land Rover the company that just launched a new model (the Freelander) and so can expect further profit growth? Also isn't Aston Martin the high profit margin company planning to launch a 5 door sports car which could almost double profitabilty and put them more firmly in the ring with the worlds most profitable car maker, Porsche? I know Jag has it's problems but even they have what industry insiders are calling a 'stunning replacement' to the S type lined up and their problems are about styling and not about quality, reliability or brand (problems Volvo had a while back). After years of Ford investment PAG UK is likely to hit the big time and now Ford is bottling it. Hell Ford Europe made less than Aston Martin, why not flog that off too? Still with Toyota and Nissan allegedly eying up PAG UK I'm sure Jag and Land Rover workers will feel quite relaxed about loosing that millstone round their neck called Ford USA... Sorry I know I've gone off on one and this is my first post, but can anyone name another car maker who would sell a gem like Land Rover? Talk about pushing panic buttons.....how desperate is Ford?