Jaguar Land Rover Future Uncertain Says Parent Tata

Hyundai should buy JLR, and produce Genesis cars as Jaguars, Lord knows quality would improve by several hundred percent and styling would not be horridly dull.

Coming last place in reliability/quality consistently eventually catches up to you

Inconsistency & Growing lack of desirability didn’t help either

100% agree. Tata wanted to siphon off profits. It wasn't interested in improving the brands. Callum destroyed Jaguar with his fixation on using the Merkur Scorpio as the inspiration for his sedans. Jaguar and LR/RR are still good brands, but all that's left is the name. If people were to drive the G90 vs the XJ--or G80 vs XF for that matter--most would have to admit at the Genesis is better. Reskin the G90 to look like a Bertone B99, call it an XJ, build it in Korea, and restore the brand.

Building cars in the UK is a losing proposition, high costs and shoddy workmanship...no one can make money doing it. BMW couldn't make money on Land Rover, Ford lost money on Jaguar and Land Rover and now Tata is losing money...Hyundai will lose money if they try too.

That's why you move production to Korea.

I read they are looking for partners and platforms to leverage. Build something with someone else to defray the costs. I don't think anyone wants a Jag or LR to be a reskinned something else. Hard to sell a premium offering that is not authentically yours.

You do realize that the previous generation Escape is under the RR Evoque, right? The "all new" Evoque was largely a nip/tuck restyle.

Spin off Maserati/Alfa combine with Jag Land Rover. Use Giorgio platform as basis across all brands tailoring each to their Italian and English Heritage. Combined they will be a strong enough Upscale niche brands able spread cost over just under Million units per year.

Then put it under Ferrari Management, no one is better at niche marketing than Ferrari. Mass market companies tend to screw up small Upscale niche brands thinking that they are the same as mass market buyers just with more money.

#Rearrange.the.deck.chairs.on.two.titanics

That would be a recipe for disaster. Giorgio is a horrible platform which is deeply compromised. Add in Alfa "quality" to Jaguar "quality" and you'd have a clusterwhirl of mediocrity. Boutique brands need a big benefactor.

Jaguar has three obstacles:

(1) Priced too high. In order to get volume in the BMW/Mercedes world, you have to buy your way in and Jaguar's strategy was the opposite. It planned to retreat upmarket. Market placement is DUMB. The F Type should not be a $100K machine as they arrive to the lot (they are NEVER available at base).

(2) Styling has ZERO Jaguar DNA. Callum raped the XJ and then followed it with the dullsville of the XF and XE.

(3) Then there is a total lack of quality control and attention to reliability. Pulling production out of England will be necessary to address that, but so will engineering by a competent supermanufacturer (sic).

Besides Hyundai-Kia, another no-brainer company for JLR would be Toyota. Jaguar could be placed above Lexus with Lexus dropping to an Acura level--which is where the lion's share of Lexus' money is made anyway. The LS becomes the XJ. Both brands would not need a full array of models to cover the market because they could divide and conquer.

I like the above suggestion of a Toyota marriage. Image the looks of RR with the reliability of Toyota motors and electronics. This would be money in the bank and could easily be folded in Toyotas plants around the globe with ease which would also drastically reduce production costs over Britain.

Toyota would be a great partner for any struggling luxury brand. Both JLR and Alfa/Maserati are unique enough and different enough that Toyota could help and support their growth. I am not sure if the problem lies in lack of resources, poor suppliers or poor manufacturing techniques, but I am sure Toyota's team could get to the bottom of it and improve their quality scores tremendously.

The problem is (1) poor engineering, (2) poor durability testing, (3) poor build quality and (4) building in countries with a poor work ethic.

Giorgio was an expensive boondoggle that failed miserably. The better way to have revived Alfa-Romeo would have been to have inked a deal with Mazda to reskin their line with Italian styling and produce a turbo-AWD brand at an Acura level to battle Subaru. Alfa-Romeos from Japan or the USA would have been wonderful.

Jaguar, like Alfa Romeo and Maserati, are only good for their names at this point. Their cars are 100% garbage. Time to sell the names.