Jaguar to close Coventry plant

[Matra et Alpine]

End of an era ?

Looks like Ford are going to close the Jaguar plant at Coventry.
Just confirming that it's not JAGUAR anymore and folks are really just buying a Ford-box with a different badge

[IBrake4Rainbows]

Oh dear. It will be the end of an era.

this is what happens when Bean counters run car companies.

[Coventrysucks]

They do have three whole factories, and a few other facilities, including their Engineering centre.

The Halewood plant in Merseyside which builds the X-Type is only 3 years old.

The Castle Bromwich plant between Birmingham and Coventry has just been refurbished, and has all the Aluminium presses/ manufacuting equipment for the chassis and panels for the new XJ. It is only building the S-Type though.

The Brown's Lane plant (the one that is to close) is fairly modern, but I think it was refurbished when Ford took over in the 1990s. It is producing the smaller volume XK and XJ models.

They need to cut costs, or sell more cars.
They aren't selling more cars, so cost cutting is neccessary.

If the Factory doesn't close, and they keep operating at a loss, Jaguar could end up going the way of the Dodo.

It isn't a great solution, by something needs to be done.

Saying that the cars aren't Jaguar is a bit unfair.

They are still designed, engineered and built by Jaguar employees, many of whom worked there before Ford took over.

Without Ford, would the XK have been built? The S-Type? The new XJ?
Would Jaguar even still exist?

[Matra et Alpine]

I know the financials, conventry, but Ford are relying on the Jaguar name to sell repanelled FORD platforms at higher prices.

The problem with selling heritage that the bean counters won't get is that closing Brown's Lane - the birthplace of Jaguar in the 30s - makes Jaguar just aother badge on another piece of steel assembled in another modern factory. it's THIS that the Morgan family DO recognise and their continued niche success. The 'soul' will now be left to the marketing hype and not the reality.

As the US dollars continues to weaken, Jaguars built in the UK are getting more expensive ( up 30% just on currency !! ).

it's the classic belief that volume is better than unit profit, and that is only true IF you can sell the volume. I hope it's NOT the start of the end, but it's a repeating pattern we've seen many times before

[Coventrysucks]

Only the X and S-Type share platforms.
The X-Type is a version of the Mondeo, the S-Type an extensively re-engineered version of the platform shared by the Lincoln LS.

The XJ is unique, the XK is based on the XJS chassis(!).

I can't see what else they can do.

Ford have given Jaguar a lot of money to build/ refurbish factories and develop new cars.

The cars aren't selling in the volumes expected.
That is the fault of Jaguar more than Ford.
If Jaguar built cars people actually wanted to buy, they wouldn't be in this mess.

They are nice cars, don't get me wrong, but would you ever consider buying one over their much more proficient German counterparts?

Jaguar have got more than one facility in Cov, so it isn't like they are leaving forever.

It will be a big hit on the local economy though. Coventry is bad enough as it is, it doesn't really need this.

[Coventrysucks]

400 Voulentary redundancies.
300 Jobs at Gaydon (Aston Martin)
Jobs moving to Castle Bromwich along with XK and XJ production.

Brown's lane will be kept as a Heritage site, with some administratin offices and wood finishing.

Not all bad then.