Jaguar and Land Rover’s new India owner has told investors he is considering reviving the famous Daimler brand once favoured by Britain’s royal family.
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Daimler was once synonymous with bespoke luxury limousines that conveyed royalty and prime ministers but, since the 1960s, the brand has largely been used for rebadged or more luxurious versions of Jaguar models.
The Times newspaper reported that Tata conglomerate head Ratan Tata said GBP1bn had earmarked been to develop new models for the British-based automakers it bought recently from Ford for $US2.3bn and “it is suggested that the company wants to transform Daimler into a super-luxury marque to compete directly with Bentley and Rolls-Royce”. The target market is wealthy buyers in Britain (where many wealthy foreign business people have homes), Asia, Russia and the Middle East.
The paper said JLR CEO David Smith suggested recently that both Jaguar and Land Rover would be taken further upmarket to the GBP100,000 ($200,000)-plus price bracket but quoted a Tata spokesman as saying it was too early to discuss whether Daimler would be part of those plans.
Auto industry expert Professor Garel Rhys told The Times: “Tata could make a very good job of this, especially if they target the space between where the top of Jaguar’s current range ends and where manufacturers such as Bentley kick in. Daimler has a fantastic heritage.”
The paper noted that Jaguar shares the rights to the Daimler name with Germany’s Daimler AG, created after DaimlerChrysler was dissolved and Chrysler’s American operations were bought by Cerberus Capital Management.
It added that Jaguar last year agreed terms which allow the German company to use the Daimler brand as the title of a trading company, a trade name or a corporate name – rights that it did not hold previously. The renegotiated terms did not affect Jaguar’s rights to build Daimler cars.
History suggests the famous British brand could do well under a new foreign owner, following Rolls-Royce (BMW) and Bentley (Volkswagen). Both were given new leases of life with foreign investment in plants and help with R&D for much-needed new models while manufacturing was retained in the UK.
See also: EMERGING MARKETS ANALYSIS: There’s more to Tata’s Jaguar-Land Rover deal than meets the eye
