So it seems that India's Tata Group is about to make its $2 billion purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover official. The company is expected to announce the Ford deal during the Geneva Motor Show, possibly Tuesday or Wednesday. I've speculated on Jaguar's fate (it won't be pretty), but after a week in a very stately (and very fast) Supercharged Range Rover Sport (pictured right and after the break), I'm prompted to contemplate the outcome for the other half of the big Ford-Tata deal, Land Rover.
It looks good. Well, it looks good for Indian workers and the marque itself, if not so much for Britain and the Brits who currently make a living building Land Rovers. Ratan Tata, chairman of the the Tata Group and great-grandson of its founder, Jamsetji Tata, loves Land Rovers and the Land Rover brand. He's called Land Rover the "ride of the Rajas," and Tata has purchased 450 acres near New Delhi for the purpose of building a Land Rover factory.
Photos courtesy of Land Rover.
Acquiring Jaguar, it seems, was simply the price that had to be paid for winning the real prize, Land Rover, as sources within Tata have apparently made no secret of the company's intention to "spin off" Jaguar as soon as possible (which likely means the Jag name will bounce around in an MG Rover-like game of hot-potato before being consumed by a Chinese company or one of the losing bidders in the Ford deal, such as India's Mahindra & Mahindra Limited.
So for now, I'm amused by this oversized, comically powerful $73,000 SUV with 20-inch performance tires and a knob on the center console that preps its trick four-wheel-drive system for everything for sand and snow to rutted two-tracks and rock-crawling. As if. Sure, I resent the $60 I just spent on three-quarters of a tank of premium gasoline, but still, I can't help but appreciate the charisma of the thing. It's that world-conquering magnetism that sells Land Rovers, as it sells Toyota Land Cruisers and Jeep Wranglers. The vast majority of these vehicles' owners will conquer nothing more than the mall parking lot. But they buy into the romance of it anyway. Ratan Tata bought into it, that's for sure.
