Industry Report: Jaguar Restructures, Closes Plant and Kills F1 Program All in One Day

Ford's PAG Tries to Stop the Bleeding as Jaguar Continues to Lose Money

Ford Motor Company has done an amiable job overseeing Jaguar, well at least from a product standpoint. Quality has gone way up

Although Ford has done a good job overseeing the Jaguar brand when it comes to products, there's not enough Jaguar loyalists in the market to sell to. (Photo: Jaguar Canada)

since the world's number two automaker took over in 1989, and traditional styling has been given the nod project after project, which must make died in the wool cat lovers happy.

One of the biggest problems, as it seems, is that there's not enough Jaguar loyalists in the market to sell to. On the flip side, some analysts believe that if the leaping cat brand had reinvented itself, in a similar way to how Volvo has gone from square and boxy to svelte and sporty, it would have attracted a new, larger client base.

Year after year stories are told of how the luxury nameplate will turn around its fortunes, but year after year similar

Jaguar is bleeding profits from other Premier Auto Group brands, namely Volvo. (Photo: Jaguar Canada)

financial reports speak the ugly red truth. Jaguar is bleeding profits from other Premier Auto Group brands, well at least one PAG brand, namely Volvo, and there's no end in sight. While Land Rover and Aston Martin are still not profitable, they are close to break even.

What's the problem with Jaguar? Maybe Ford had higher hopes for the revered marque when ex-CEO Jacques Nasser took it over? Possibly the executive group of the time felt it could have the market power of a BMW or Mercedes-Benz. No doubt Jaguar hadn't factored in Lexus or Infiniti when negotiations were underway in the late '80s, nor could it have guessed how popular the sport utility would become in the premium segment.