Word: jaguars
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...hailed Fields as the next Carlos Ghosn--the executive who led Nissan's dramatic turnaround. Fields' bosses at Ford, which owns a controlling stake in Mazda, were so impressed that they handed him a bigger job: turbocharging Ford's troubled Premier Automotive Group (PAG), made up of Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo...
...Land Rover from BMW for $2.6 billion in 2000, must be relieved. Especially since Ford, which lost $5.45 billion last year, is making Range Rover and other luxury European models central to its latest restructuring plan. By 2005, the U.S. automaker wants its Premier Automotive Group (PAG) - Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo and Aston Martin, plus Lincoln, its upmarket American marque - to contribute 35% of its profits, up from a current 13%. To accomplish that, overall sales of the five brands must soar 51%. That's a tough goal, but PAG president Wolfgang Reitzle is confident. "We have a robust strategy...
...bolster profitability Ford is planning some component sharing among the PAG models, a risky tactic. "You don't want customers saying a Jaguar is just a dressed-up Ford," Dunne says. To avoid that problem, Ford is sharing only those parts customers can't see or touch, like electronics. Says Harry Roegner, PAG spokesman: "Electronic architecture makes up a third of the cost of a car, and in the future it will be 50%. Do you see that cabling and wiring?" In another economy move, Ford is consolidating the backroom operations of Land Rover, Jaguar and Aston Martin...
Aston Martin, James Bond's favorite sports car, currently starts at $150,000 but is planning an "entry level" model - at $92,000. As for the other PAG marques, Jaguar turned a profit of $100 million last year, its first since Ford acquired it in 1989, and sales are improving. Volvo, the family car of choice, made $700 million and remains the group's workhorse. Indeed, Ford is a quintessential American company that grew huge by creating the mass automobile market. Ironically, its future now rests in large part with a handful of low-volume, élitist cars made...
...huge gamble for a company whose very name means People's Car. "The question is, will a customer want to pay that amount of money for a Volkswagen when you can have cars that already have a brand image such as BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar and Lexus?" says Garel Rhys, an automotive expert at the University of Wales. "If they offer the same sort of car at the same sort of price, then they're in trouble...