Globalisation no harm to Jaguar Land Rover’s Britishness

Jaguar says it will maintain its Britishness despite expanding its production network outside the United Kingdom.

While the UK's mainstream motoring brands have all gone by the wayside (with the exception of Vauxhall, though it is twinned with Opel as part of the GM Empire) premium British brands are in a better position than ever, with Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Jaguar and Land Rover all offering more model lines than ever before, and reaping the sales benefits.

But none of those four high-end British automakers are truly British. Despite design, development and,in most cases, construction taking place in Britain, ownership of British brands has long since passed into foreign hands.

At the opening of the Paris Motor Show, Jaguar Land Rover's Global sales director, Andy Goss, remained bullish about the continuing Britishness of Jaguar Land Rover since Indian-owned and operated industrial giant Tata took over the brand in 2008.

When Australian media asked Mr Goss how important maintaining the 'Britishness' of Jaguar and Land Rover was, his response was intriguingly international, "The Britishness, in terms of design in particular, I think is important because we're lucky that, in American terms, we have two great quarterbacks in [designers] Ian [Callum] and Gerry [McGovern] and they're quite phenomenal actually, and we're renowned the world over."

But, in a global trading economy, Mr Goss did concede that there were advantages to extending the  company's footprint beyond the UK.

"We want to have the best labour all over the place. We want to make sure that we're not just exporting British cars. We've got to be credible in China for China, in Korea for Korea, etcetera. That's where the expansion is coming from, but not at the expense of dialling down where the brand's coming from," he said.

Already, Jaguar Land Rover has plants outside of the UK in China, India, and Brazil with a new Slovakian plant about to open, though at this stage vehicles sold in the Australian market are still sourced from British factories.

Jaguar and Land Rover's previous American ownership as part of Ford's Premier Automotive Group, which also included Volvo and Aston Martin, first saw the brand transfer into international hands in 1989 and BMW's ownership of Land Rover from 1994 until 2000, when Ford assumed control.

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