So Land Rover and Jaguar have been bought by Tata at long last as a result of a £1.15/billion deal.

Despite American ownership in recent years, the two marques have been considered as the last bastions of British automotive manufacturing. Now many feel that the Land Rover factory at Lode Lane in Solihull and the Jaguar plants at Castle Bromwich and Halewood could be at risk of industrial ‘outsourcing’.

Tata, as India’s second largest industrial group has massive, low-cost industrial facilities in the East. They could realise huge increases in profits* by simply moving the manufacturing base to a cheaper country. Naturally, Tata deny they intend to do anything of the sort, much like SAIC and Nanjing automotive claimed that jobs would remain at Longbridge just before they ripped out all of Rover’s tooling and shipped it to China. All that now remains at Longbridge are some bulldozed sites, an under-let ‘technology’ park and a tiny CKD assembly operation that barely seems worthwhile.

Only time will tell whether the Defender and it’s kin are lost from our shores and whether the lines at Castle Bromwich will fall forever silent. On past experience, I don’t think we’ll have to wait long.

*This depends on the global market for SUVs and heavy luxury cars not collapsing under the credit crunch and fuel price inflation.

Tags: castle bromwich, halewood, india, jaguar, land rover, lode lane, nanjing, rover, saic, tata

As anyone who lives in the UK will know, our remaining automotive industry is exceptionally thin on the ground. With the loss of Rover in 2005, there is now no major domestic car manufacturer under British ownership.

In the interests of unfounded optimism, I thought I’d have a look at which of the time-served British marques were still owned by British companies and could potentially (although not probably) be used for future British car production. Marked in Red are marques that are still owned by UK companies, in Blue are UK companies still manufacturing cars and in black are names that have been aquired by foreign companies.

• AC Active: Alan Lubinsky (Hal Far, Malta)

• Austin Defunct: Nanjing Automobile Group (China)

• Bristol Active: Tony Crook (UK!)

• BSA Defunct as a manufacture, now parts company UK

• Daimler Active: Ford Motor Company (USA)

• Jaguar Active: TATA Motor Company (India)

• Land Rover Active: TATA Motor Company (India)

• Leyland Defunct: Possibly Volvo or Nanjing

• Lotus Very active UK company. Majority shares probably held by Proton via LGIL

• MG Active: Nanjing Automobile Group (China)

• Mini Active: Formerly a model name, now a marque (capitalised as MINI) BMW (Germany)

• Morgan Active: Charles Morgan (UK!)

• Morris Defunct: Nanjing Automobile Group (China)

• Nuffield Defunct: Possibly now Nanjing Automotive (China)

• Riley Defunct: BMW (Germany)

• Rover Defunct: Ford Motor Company (USA)

• Triumph Defunct as a car manufacturer. Offshoot Triumph Motorcycles is active. BMW owns Triumph cars brand.

• Vauxhall Active: General Motors (USA)

• Wolseley Motor Company Defunct: Nanjing Automobile Group (China)

Out of the remaining names, Lotus is the biggest operation and is still a fairly autonomous company despite much of it’s shares being owned by overseas companies. Morgan are still very British and are experimenting with hydrogen fuel-cell cars and Bristol are still Bristol

Tags: ac, alvis, austin, bmw, bristol, bsa, daimler, ford, gm, jaguar, land rover, leyland, lotus, mg, mini, morgan, nanjing, nuffield, riley, rover, tata, triumph, vauxhall, wolseley