The resurgent Jaguar is now all set to claw its way back in the luxury market game. The company’s all three models – XF, XJ and XK – can be considered as highly successful in the luxury race though their numbers are no way near to the German marquees.

Jaguar XF rear

What Jaguar needs right now is an entry level sedan to rival the likes of BMW 3 Series, Mercedes C-Class and Audi A4. This need has been identified by the pouncing cat as it is all set to introduce a 3 Series challenger in 2016.

Jaguar XF FaceliftJaguar has set its eyes on fast emerging luxury market of India and China. In order to invade the Chinese markets, it needed a partner that could bring in the local expertise. According to Chinese government regulations, foreign car manufacturers can only build manufacturing plants in China if they sign joint venture deals with indigenous brands.

Hence, there were a lot of rumors about the British marquee tying the knot with Chery Automobile Company. However, it is now officially announced that this Indo-British-Chinese venture is all set to capture the luxury market in China.

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2012 Parx Supercar Parade Jaguar XKIt is no secret that Jaguar is planning an assault on the Germans and to set themselves up, the company’s increasing its presence in emerging markets and on top of that developing many new products. We have heard about Jaguar’s plan to do two models under the XF, one to compete with the C-Class and the 3 Series, while another goes a segment below to attack the 1 Series and Audi A3.

Once its stable is packed, Jaguar could assemble select cars in India. The company believes that in another 3-5 years, this could happen. Land Rover assembles the Freelander at Tata’s plant in Pune and could use the same facility, after it is expanded, to build Jaguar cars as well.

Jaguar Land Rover, now a Tata Motors owned company, is planning to shift gears at the Frankfurt Motor show. Each brand is planning to bring something new at the motorshow. More so, each company will put these models in production in the near future.

Land Rover Freelander2

Let’s start with Jaguar. Jaguar is expected to reveal a new sports car in concept. Rumor has it that it will be a small sport car below the XK. It will be the show stopper from Jaguar and will directly compete against the Porsche Boxter.

The car could be potentially named the XE and will be powered by V6 petrol engines, boosted by turbochargers. However, there could also be a XF station wagon that the market is waiting for since a long time. Only time will tell what is this secret leaping cat.

Let’s move on to Land Rover. This brand is even more ambitious than its sister. Land Rover is planning to display a concept that will be the modern day Defender.

The current Defender dates to 1983 and is a direct descendant of the original 1948 Land Rover Series. So you can imagine how desperately the brand needs to rejig the Defender. The new Defender could be based in the LR3 chassis. The company wants the new defender to score a bigger slice of the utility market.

Back home, there are good chances that the XE will be launched considering its bigger sister XK is already in the market. However, Tata Motors is mum about bring the Defender brand in India.

Way back in 2008, Tata Motors bought the iconic British marquee Jaguar-LandRover for 2.3 billion dollars and then managed to turn things around in less than three years. The Indo-Brit partnership is now ready to take things on the next level. In the company’s 66th annual report, 2010-11, Mr Ratan Tata announced that Tata Motors Ltd and Jaguar Land Rover will jointly develop engines in the future.

Range Rover

The idea of this co development program is to optimize the synergetic strengths between JLR and Tata Motors in India and United Kingdom. As JLR currently gets their engines from Ford, this will be the next step of back-end integration for it and the Indian owner. It will help in cutting costs on manufacturing the vehicles and making them cheaper for price-sensitive markets such as India.

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JLR opens new assembly plant in Pune

Jaguar Land Rover today opened the first assembly plant in India at Pune. Assembling vehicles imported from UK, the first vehicle to come off the assembly line is the Land Rover Freelander 2 shipped from the Halewood facility in Liverpool. The facility can assemble other cars, details of which are not clear. Both Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles are expected to be assembled at this plant.

Land Rover Freelander 2

JLR is planning an onslaught of models of the next four years to reach the top be on top in the luxury car market. Currently it sells Jaguar XJ, XF,and XK, the Land Rover Freelander 2, Discovery 4, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover in India.

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Ratan Tata wants to get bring back ‘the Jag’

Thanks to Jeremy Clarkson, we all know how to pronounce ‘The Jag’. Actually, now that we are on the topic, let’s say it one more time – ‘The Jaaaag’. Although Jaguar-Landrover is now out of the red zone, the carmaker’s design philosophy is still questioned by a lot of people with remarks such as ‘They just borrow it from Aston Martin.’ All of these remarks have caught the eye of  [ Read More ]

Could JLR join hands with Chery in China?

Range Rover Evoque

Jaguar-Land Rover is looking at expanding its operations in China. The company now wants to locally manufacture its products in the highly lucrative Chinese market in order to bring the costs down and subsequently increase volume.

JLR is very much in a hurry to get this work started. In order to build cars locally in China you need to have a local partner. And JLR is looking for just that. Chery Automobiles and Beijing Auto seem to be the ones at the forefront among many others.

Chinese automakers are not experts at luxury cars and a joint venture with JLR could really help the company to learn a thing or two about high end cars from the UK based company.

Stefen Berger has been assigned by JLR to strike a deal with the Chinese Auto Companies. UK Prime Minister David Cameroon is also visiting China next week and he is expected to further talk to the Chinese Government about this joint venture and to speed up this process.

JLR is looking at investing more than 100 Million Pounds on this plant which will begin with an initial capacity of 50, 000 units per annum.