This will be interesting to watch
Jaguar/Rover deal nets Ford $1.6 Billion
Ford is selling its storied Jaguar and Land Rover businesses to India’s Tata Motors in a deal that will net the U.S. automaker $1.7 billion — roughly a third of the price it paid for the two luxury brands.
The deal announced Wednesday will expand the Indian carmaker’s reach around the globe and give Jaguar and Land Rover sorely needed capital to update and expand their product lines.
I was really hoping that Chrysler would buy Rover and hand them off to work with the Jeep folks so as to make an ultimate off-road vehicle.
Alas, no.
But it will be interesting to see what the Zoroastrian-run, Hindu backed corporation will do with them both. I’m hoping, what with where the Hindis like to drive their Rovers, that they will continue to improve the vehicle’s capabilities.
Jaguar, with this new influx of cash, will hopefully go all the way and become India’s Daimler/Benz. I’m looking for a Maybach style cruiser in the next five years and full-on international racing division, in green, within seven.
Hopefully my Zoroastrian friend will get his U.S. Citizenship this year. If so, he plans to a) buy a gun b) go to Boomershoot in 2009.
Sell Rover to Government Motors? English engineering (cough) with Federal Bureaucracy? Egad, man!