I think it’s safe to say that none of the Western auto manufacturers ever contemplated an alliance with this manufacturer.
2 Likes
This is becoming an interesting discussion
Remembering that Jaguar/Rover were first part of the BMC mess, Jaguar was then acquired by Ford, who actually investing in it before giving up, we now have Tata. Certainly Tata, a 3rd World unknown, gained some cache from the Brands but since then it’s hard to see what else was gained as there’s been no other significant product developments since then.
But without constant development “Brand Names” have a very short life so how long will it be before before the bloom is off this rose?
On the other hand Geely has taken a different tack, leaving Volvo to develop their own new vehicles so maybe this has more longevity.
The Aston Martin and Lagonda purchase was simply a Brand Halo purchase, similar to VW’s purchase of Bugatti. “My Jetta was made by the same company that makes the Bugatti”, again of similar limited benefit.
Hyundai and Kia both share a close relationship but both are independent and competitors.
Daewoo-GM and VW-Skoda I’m not familiar with so I can’t comment.
Porsche - VW have been the same company since inception. Porsche was founded in 1931 with their first vehicle in 1939 and was the predicessor of VW Beetle, which it continued to share components with in the Bathtup Porsche’s and 914’s.
My view is that “joint venture”, “acquisition” and “merger” are all warning signs that it’s time to get your resume updated and for vehicle owners to consider their long term value.
.
It seems like car designs are pretty much the same world-wide these days b/c of similar country to country emissions requirements. So it makes sense for car companies to band together to take advantage of economy of scale. Likely the ones that do this first and correctly will end up with nearly the entire world-wide automobile market, absent perhaps a few specialty vehicles.
In the early 1980s Bethlehem Steel provided several classes thought by local university professors to staff, me included. I implemented the continuous quality improvement methods on my job and at ensuing jobs after I left. I found that the education was just the start and that I had to learn what important measurements to make to improve the quality of the final product. That meant measuring a lot of stuff that wasn’t important, spending time that could have been used to improve quality.
Relationships like GM/Toyota allowed the partners to use each others experience an that made money more quickly. Another example was the Ford Escort of the 1980s. It used the same transmission as the Mazda 323. The Escort had a lot of transmission problems while the “identical” transmission in the 323 did not. Ford looked into the issue and found that the manufacturing control measurements used by Mazda produced transmission parts that fit together far more often than the Ford parts, despite using the same manufacturing tolerances. Once Ford started using the Mazda methods, their Escort transmissions failed far less often. You can’t learn that in a book.
2 Likes
You aren’t looking very closely. How about the E and F Pace SUV’s, The I-Pace EV SUV, The F-type (the BEST exhaust notes!), X-E and X-F executive cars, and the various performance R-variants all released since Tata purchased the brand from Ford in 2008. Ford itself made HUGE impact on Jaguar’s quality in the years of ownership and expanded Jag’s offerings with the S and X-Type to the market.
Under Ford’s ownership Land Rover introduced a new Range Rover and gave up its GM-designed V8 engine after 40 years of use. Tata promptly introduced the Discovery, the Evoque, the 4th gen Range Rover, the Velar, and a new Defender in 2020.
Ford literally saved Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin Lagonda from eventual bankruptcy, sold them during the economic downturn in 2008 to have Tata expand the lineups of both companies.
Hyundai owns 33% of Kia so not exactly independent.
Not correct. Porsche founded a consultancy business in 1931, designed the original Beetle but did NOT own Volkswagen. The German government did.
Porsche’s first car, the 356, was created in 1947 and sold in 1949 (50 cars) using mostly VW running gear because Dr. Porsche’s daughter had the rights to sell VWs in Austria. By about 1954, the parts were Porsche specific, not VW. The 914 was a joint venture between the two companies. Porsche did benefit from royalty payments for each Beetle sold. Porsche was an independent company until being merged into VW-Audi Group in 2011 but was floated as a public company in 2022.
Jaguar Land Rover still designs and builds cars in the UK so employs a lot of long time JLR people. Porsche is more successful than ever and VW Audi Group is the first or second largest vehicle manufacturer in the world depending on the year. They swap with Toyota every now and again.
I can’t see any of those tie-ups as less than successes.
2 Likes
Ahhh, Bethlehem Steel / Shipbuilding and Maryland Shipbuilding, both of which I had the unfortunate duty to participate in the closure.
At the time of the closures Beth Steel between 2008 and 2012 was briefly owned by Mittal, then Servestal and finally the Renco Group.
Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock was acquired by Freuhauf in 1970 and closed in 1984.
Four years between acquisition / closure and 14 years respectively, which is “the blink of the eye” for huge industrial plants.
Both sites were leveled, for residential or warehousing respectively.
Of course there were other factors related to the closure but these both prove my points.
- That mergers / joint ventures / acquisions rarely contribute to the “continuing operation” of the surviving entity.
- For the Employees and Investors, this is a bright, flashing red light to run for the exit.
- And specifically addressing your Beth Steel and Mazda comments, I agree. Good manufacturing / QC can’t be achieved solely by a “cookbook approach” or by slavishly imposing another entities’ model, which is one of the reasons why these so often fail.
.
Regarding Jaguar Landrover, if I were an employee I’d look long and hard at the similarities between JLR and former automotive designers /manufacturers / assemblers Karmann and Gruppo Bertone and former automotive designer Carrozzeri Ghia before signing a 30 year mortgage. 
Those of us who are a “certain age” remember with some fondness the Karmann Ghia (VW/Karmann/Ghia), the convertible Beetle (Karmann VW), the Bertone X 1/9 and the Chrysler Crossfire (Chrysler body design, MB parts, Karmann assembly) .
After multiple joint ventures, reorganizations and acquisitions Karmann is gone, Bertone is trying to ressurect itself as a boutique.operation and Ghia exists only as a luxury nameplate of Ford.
So how long do you think it will be before Tata moves their entire JLR operation back to low cost India?
I think that the Tata folks are smart enough to realize that the cachet of a luxury nameplate vehicle would be greatly diminished by having it assembled in India.
2 Likes
Its been 15 years so far… so I don’t think it will be very soon. Tata designs and builds its own cars and trucks as well as has subsidiary companies around the world.
Volvo is in exactly the same situation. Their Chinese ownership creates problems for the Chinese management. It takes them 2-3 months or longer to get permission to leave China. That makes global company management very difficult if not impossible. That is also why my former GM division owned by the Chinese have engineering and management functions in the Dayton, Ohio area even though none of the manufacturing plants is co-located.
For all the problems with the UK car industry in the 70s and 80s, the country still builds about 1.5 M cars in a non-pandemic market. They built 2 M in 1970 and 1.3 M in 1980. But not, of course, from UK ownership.
My employer asked me to take a class on quality improvement methods used in engineering design, called ISO 9000 I think. The basic idea is to not do any implementation until the planning for that stage is complete. Later I was directing a staff meeting, someone asked what what does ISO 9000 mean? I said “It means when I walk into your office you should either be working on your project plan, or a step in the plan.” At that point one of the staff sighed, looked sort of ill. She thought I meant she had to work on the project 100% of the time, couldn’t ever phone her boyfriend to ask him what they were going to do that weekend … lol …
Say what you do and then do what you say.
My classes were way before ISO-9000 came about. We were schooled in quality measurement statistics designed to put a process in control. Being in control means that the non-random variations are worked out of the system and only random variations remain. Once the random variations remain, they are evaluated for compliance with specifications. If they are not within specifications, tests are run to determine how varying the process can reduce variations.
As an example, I worked in a large machine shop. We had large variations in height of solid roller bearings. After substantiating what the variations were, I measured height of solid roller bearings with different wall thicknesses and determined that thin wall rollers had little variation and thick wall rollers had much more variation in height. The rollers were on a carousel that rotated through a pair of huge grinding wheels that rotated in the opposite direction. As odd as it seemed, the thick wall roller bearings were flexing these huge briniding wheels enough to cause excessive height variations. Now do that for the thousands of parts in an automobile. It takes a very long time to get an automobile “in control”.
1 Like