How to put Jaguar back on the road

A traditional British brand. A great history. Businessmen love it. Strong in the home counties. Younger people don’t have much idea what it stands for, and probably wouldn’t want it if they did. If these were the political pages, you’d assume we were discussing the Conservative party. But this is the Business section, and we’re actually talking about Jaguar.

Just like the Tories, Jaguar is an illustrious name with a great history. If you look closely, it also has some pretty good products. Yet it has seen its share of the market shrink. The world appears to have moved on around it. Jaguar needs to re-invent itself for a new era. The big cat can be saved — but, like the Conservative party, it needs to be completely restyled. The issue is whether Jaguar’s owner, Ford, can still do that, or needs to hand the task to someone else.

Of all the historic names of the British motor industry — Austin, Rover, Morris — the only one that has struggled into the 21st century almost intact is Jaguar. The maker of such legendary cars as the E-type, still regularly voted the most desirable car ever made, stumbled into the public sector as part of British Leyland, stumbled out again, and wound up as a unit of Ford back in 1989.

The American giant paid £1.6 billion for Jaguar, and since then has poured an estimated £4 billion into trying to bring it back to life. Now it’s starting to wonder if its pockets are deep enough to keep Jaguar going. Ford chairman William Clay Ford has hired a former Goldman Sachs banker, Kenneth Leet, to look at ‘strategic options’. But getting someone from Goldman to do that is like asking Savills what to do with your country house. They’re going to suggest, politely but persuasively, that you should sell it.