Did Ford take Jaguar down the wrong road?

When Ford purchased Jaguar Cars Ltd in 1989, the Jaguar brand had for some years been tarnished with a reputation for poor build quality. There can be no doubt that the financial investment and quality control that Ford brought with it saved the Jaguar marque from an untimely end. However, Ford has been unable to make a financial success of Jaguar and is now looking to sell the car manufacturer together with Land Rover -- did Ford misjudge the Jaguar marque and its past success?

Jaguar's past

From its humble beginnings as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922, and for much of Jaguar's subsequent history, William Lyons, the company's co-founder, had a fundamental approach to his cars: to produce distinctive, high quality automobiles but at as low a cost as possible. The first of these, the Austin Seven Swallow, was simply a rebodied version of the humble Austin Seven because, Lyons believed, "... that it would also appeal to a lot of people if it had a more luxurious and attractive body."

In later years, the success of iconic Jaguars such as the XKs and E-Types were in part due to their distinct blend of forward-looking style and sophisticated use of technology. The power and quality of the XK engines used for the Jaguar XK120, and subsequent cars for many years, was far in advance of other comparable engines of the period. Similarly the much improved ride quality and road holding abilities of these cars had left their counterparts behind.

It was much the same with the Jaguar E-Type, a sensation when it was launched at the Geneva Motor Show in 1961. Here was a race-bred, visually sensational, 150mph sports car at just half the price of its nearest rival, the Aston Martin DB4.

The Jaguar XKs, and the C and D-Types which evolved from them, also enjoyed much success in sports car racing, dominating the Le Mans 24 Hour race in the 1950s and contributing to the success of the marque. In the 1980s Jaguar again returned to Le Mans with the Group C XJRs, winning in 1988 and 1990.

Ford's tenureship of the Jaguar brand

Since the mid 1990s, Ford has launched several new Jaguars, including the XJ8/XJR, S-Type, X-Type and XK8/R. The common theme amongst these models is that they have all taken their styling cues from historical Jaguars such as the D and E-Types of the '50s and '60s for the XK8, and the XJ6s and XJ12s of the '70s and '80s for the saloons.

One can certainly appreciate Ford's reasoning behind the decision to ape the styles that proved so successful for Jaguar in the past, but by doing so they appear to have missed the point of what made those cars successful in the first place: that the styles then were looking forward rather than backwards.

In an attempt to recoup the substantial financial investment in Jaguar, and in keeping with its own history, Ford created the X-Type as a "low-budget" Jaguar that was intended to appeal to the fleet market and those for whom the top-end models were too expensive. Yet this model never sold in the volumes that Ford hoped for outside of the UK. For many potential purchasers, the model shared too much in common with Ford's own Mondeo to be distinctively 'Jaguar', and for younger owners the car bore too much resemblance to the Jaguar XJ -- a model traditionally driven by older owners. It was also a highly competitive market and the X-Type was in direct competition with BMW, Mercedes and, at the time, the similarly styled Rover 75.

Yet on occasions Ford have created much interest amongst motoring journalists and enthusiasts with a number of concept cars. The XK180, and similarly styled F-Type, were greatly praised and could, potentially, have tapped into the emerging market for roadsters alongside the Porsche Boxter and Mercedes-Benz SLK, yet neither were translated into production models.

Sporting pretensions

With Jaguar's past successes in motor sport having added much to the brand, Ford attempted to recreate this with its entry into Formula 1 racing. Formula 1, however, with its vast budgets and tendency to be dominated by one or two top teams was an ambitious leap and the Jaguar team never managed to challenge for world championship points on a consistent basis.

In hindsight it would, perhaps, have been better to concentrate efforts in other motorsport categories. Indeed, the XKRs run in the Trans-Am series proved very successful, securing four manufacturers' titles. In Europe, the Apex Motorsport Jaguar XKR GT3 is being developed for competition in the FIA GT3 championship.

Had the F1 budget been spread across other classes, Jaguar's presence in world motorsport may have been a different story.

Too much too late

With the launch of the much praised next-generation XK/R in 2006, and the XF due out in late 2007 to replace the S-Type, Jaguar's model line-up does finally appear to be looking forwards both in terms of style and technology -- a substantial reason for the success of the brand throughout Jaguar's history. But with Ford having experienced financially troubled times over the last few years, the sale of Jaguar would inject much needed capital back into Ford, just as the Jaguar marque looks set to turn the corner and experience a resurgence in popularity.


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