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Jaguar is invoking its iconic E-Type roadster to challenge Mercedes and Porsche with its first two- seat sports car in almost four decades. The F-Type, due to be unveiled in September and go on sale as soon as next April, will be Jaguar’s smallest auto in more than a half-century as the marque seeks a return to its sporting tradition following decades spent focusing on luxury sedans. What’s more, it has been confirmed that the roadster will be built on English soil in Birmingham.

“If the product can do what the original E-Type did for Jaguar, it will be a huge boost,” said Peter Schmidt, managing director of Warwick, England-based Automotive Industry Data. “What they’re doing is laudable, it’s good for the brand and it’s good for the image. But nobody should expect miracles.”

The E-Type, introduced at the 1961 Geneva Motor Show, was described by Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari as “the most beautiful car ever built,” and became synonymous with the London of the “Swinging Sixties.” Yet it has taken the $2.5 billion purchase of Jaguar by India’s Tata Motors Ltd. in 2008 for a pure-bred sports model to return to favor at the British manufacturer.

Tata, which acquired the Jaguar and Land Rover brands from Ford Motor Co. and combined them into a single unit, plans to invest $12 billion over five years to win a bigger slice of an upscale market dominated by German automakers.

Tata Motors fell as much as 2.4 percent to 289.40 rupees and was down 0.7 percent as of 2:58 p.m. in Mumbai trading today. The shares have gained 65 percent this year, exceeding gains of 31 percent for Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, 18 percent at Volkswagen AG and 13 percent at Daimler AG, which owns Mercedes-Benz cars.

Read more at The San Francisco Chronicle.

The curse of the British tea break strikes again. Just as BMW announces record sales, its Mini factory in Oxford is threatened by a first strike since 1984 over alleged incursions into workers’ break times.

The company, which only two years ago attempted to seek Government support as global car sales collapsed, said pre-tax profits rose from £15m last year to £1.1bn in the year to March 31. The increase has been driven by a huge rise in Jaguar and Land Rover sales in China and emerging markets, where the middle classes see the British cars as a status symbol.

JLR sales rose 51pc in the year from £6.6bn to £9.9bn, which was also aided by new models such as the Jaguar XJ and favourable foreign exchange rates. “Jaguar Land Rover is now a strong, profitable and innovative competitor in the premium car industry,” said Carl-Peter Forster, chief executive of JLR’s parent company Tata Motors.

Indian company Tata bought JLR from Ford in 2008, but initially suffered heavy losses as the recessions struck.

Read the more of the complete story at The Telegraph.

Land Rovers began rolling off the assembly line Friday at the British brand’s first plant in India since it was bought by the Indian car giant Tata Motors. Parts are still being manufactured at Jaguar Land Rover’s plant in Liverpool, England, but Land Rover Freelander 2 SUV’s are now being built in the western Indian city of Pune.

India offers Jaguar great opportunities to build cars for less, Carl-Peter Forster, chief executive officer and managing director of Tata Motors, told reporters. “Clearly, India can be a very attractive sourcing base, an opportunity to source increasingly high quality but lower cost components not only for India operations but for overseas operations,” he said. Forster has already indicated that Indian engineering will also play a role in the design of Jaguar Land Rover engines.

Tata bought Jaguar from Ford in 2008 for $2.3 billion. As part of that transaction, Tata Motors entered into a series of contracts to buy vehicle components and technology from Ford. Forster said those contracts begin to expire around 2015. He intends to renew them, but would like to engineer new engines in-house, combining the expertise of the group’s engineers in India and the U.K.

Auto expert Shapur Kotwal said that India’s premium car market was expected to grow strongly in the next five years with more people able to afford expensive cars.

“It’s an aspirational thing that we had grown up in the society where we had got only Marutis and before that only Fiats and Ambassadors,” said Kotwal, naming some relatively cheap Japanese, Italian and Indian cars. “So it’s natural that we want to have the best; we have been starved of good cars.”

There was a lot of eye rolling and worried looks when Ford sold Jaguar to India’s Tata. But based on the latest December figures, maybe there wasn’t reason to worry.

Jaguar sold 1,246 cars in December in the U.S., a 24% increase from last year. Land Rover sold 3,595 of its rugged SUVs, a 37% boost from a year ago. For the full year, combined sales of both brands dipped 14%, not bad considering how the overall auto industry saw sales plunge even more. Needless to say, execs are happy:

“Three consecutive months of Jaguar and Land Rover growth is a great way to end 2009, and a sign of better times to come,” said Jaguar-Land Rover North America President Gary Temple. “We start 2010 with sales momentum, strong product lineups for both brands, and the launch of the 2011 Jaguar XJ on its way. It is going to be a very exciting year.”

Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by a company now best known as the maker of the world’s cheapest car, the $2,500 Nano that plies the rough roads of India. Many were unsure what would happen to the storied British brands in the hands of a third-world automaker. But Tata looks like it’s succeeding — so far.

Executives at Jaguar Land Rover, the Midlands carmaker, are drawing up plans for an extended shutdown of its UK plants and a new round of staff layoffs as it struggles to cope with the slump in the world car market.

Preparation for the closures comes just days after the company released its new flagship, the latest version of the Jaguar XJ beloved by prime ministers and top British executives.
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