Whoever buys Jaguar, up for sale along with Land Rover by Ford, will inherit a sports saloon car maker which is getting back to its roots.
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Company insiders said Jaguar is getting away from shared platforms with Ford Mondeos fast.
The XK and the recently unveiled XF show exactly the way forward according to company boss Mike O’Driscoll.
Speaking at the Tokyo Motor Show, where the XF was unveiled to the Japanese press, he said: “These cars promise a great future, the XF particularly displays a real sense of drama, back to the time when Jaguars looked as if they were moving even when standing still.”
The company is pressing ahead with future plans regardless of who buys it. O’Driscoll added: “There is little we can do about the sale, that is in the hands of Ford. Does it bother us? No, because we are completely focussed on future products.
“While we are entering a new phase we are concentrating on our day jobs, producing a new generation of Jaguars which are sophisticated, refined, elegant and being led by the latest technology to appeal to a wider group of luxury car buyers.”
The Castle Bromwich factory in the Midlands already has full order books for the new models – the plant also produces the XJ and S-type, but he does not see a need to increase capacity.
“Having demand outstrip supply is a good place to be for a luxury car maker,” he added.
“There is no pressure on numbers of sales because that misses the core of what Jaguar is all about.”
In Japan, the Jaguar brand is popular among luxury car buyers, O’Driscoll said, while demand is also growing in China and Russia.
“We have a lot of Japanese enthusiasts with a lot of expectations so we have to concentrate on the quality of our cars rather than the quantity.”
