Good news in the newspapers today that Jaguar will next week unveil profits for 2011 of about £1.5 billion, which is probably a record. I am sure that Indian owners Tata will be very pleased with this. Only a few years back they were struggling to survive but much has been achieved as a result of work put into the company by the efforts of previous owners, Ford. They could never reap any real benefit because they had to sell the company to help bail out the parent company in America. I still love my X Type and apparently lots of other people still love their X Types as well. When Jaguar stopped making this car, senior executives at Jaguar said that they were giving up on the idea of making cheap cars for the masses and would concentrate on niche marketing. I thought it was a daft idea then but there were lots of motoring pundits who agreed with them. But, just the other day, I was reading that "many people are wondering why Jaguar gave up the X type — still very popular and holding its second-hand price — without first coming up with a replacement". Now they have a new design on the books and a new "X Type" will be on the roads in 2014 — probably a competitor for the BMW 3 Series. It will be the smallest Jaguar ever made and will be priced at about £20,000. Right! Exactly what they should have done before dropping production of the old model and, remember, this car always sold in more numbers than all the other cars put together. Alongside the XF, XK and the brand new F Type, they will have a good range. I am still not over enamoured with the new XJ. I still think that the old one was a much, much better looking car — with character. The new XJ still looks like something Germanic that didn't quite work out.
In a recent edition of Autocar, it seems that the old S series Jaguar is still No 1 for a good comfortable ride and handling. Extraordinary, considering how much it was slagged off by many — including the team on Top Gear.
But the motor industry is doing well all round. Vauxhall are expanding the factory at Ellesmere Port to make Astras for the next ten years and have got a good agreement with the unions for flexible working. Nissan are expanding in Sunderland — a factory which has the highest efficiency and productivity in the group and is best on quality issues. Who would have thought things like this could happen in the British motor industry. Sadly almost all is now under foreign ownership. Even Bentley and Rolls Royce are doing well. In the last year, for the first time since 1976, we exported more cars than we imported. Perhaps we can get some economic growth after all.
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