Land Rover & Jaguar to India?

[TokyoAussie]

Those quintessential marques, Land Rover and Jaguar, are on the verge of being sold to an Indian company. I suppose the good news is that the companies will continue to survive, at least for a little bit longer.

[White Lightning]

Anyone who listens to Gareth Jones on Speed might remember they did a skit a while back where it was an old Imperial news broadcast talking about "those funny little cars from the colonies." - I think it spoke of a Land Rover. The twist is, it was 'Tata Indian News.'

It's a bit sad but there's always hope Tata can rejuvenate them a bit.

However, the free market must prevail, and at the moment theirs is a bit freer than ours. I just hope they pay some attention to heritage and don't go chasing the US market like Ford did with some truly dire looking cars (the XK, anyone?)

One good thing will come out of this though: soon India will start outsourcing to Britain - Tata Customer Service call-centres in Birmingham?

[xynaria]

The current talk is that JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) showed Tata a five year plan (including new models) that they were so enamoured with that they effectively agreed to bank roll it hands off, keeping things very much as they are

Whether it will peg out like that in reality remains to be seen (thinks back to BMW's promises to Rover/MG)
_________________
it'll all end in tears..........cool!

[TokyoAussie]

My first car was a Mini Clubman. It is one thing to reminisce about the old days, but then I remember what a pain it was to change the oil. The front grille had to come off to gain access and the oil filter pointed downwards (meaning the oil drained all over the ground when changing the filter). I am positive, without doing any research at all, that BMW would never have been so stupid.

To wit, there are good reasons some of these cars have gone to the wall. There have been some good models in the past, but history does not sell cars.