Ford to Use Jaguar Parts in More Cars, Under Pressure for Higher Profits From Luxury Brands

PARIS September 23,2004; The AP reported that Ford Motor Co., under pressure to deliver higher profits from its luxury brands, is planning to make its British luxury brand Jaguar share more components and technologies with other luxury units, a senior company executive told The Wall Street Journal.

Ford also aims to more than triple the number of Aston Martins it sells over the next three years.

Another of the company's British units, Land Rover, plans to roll out a new sport-utility vehicle next year that company officials describe as "more sporty" than Land Rover's traditional offerings.

In an interview a week after the company cut more than 1,000 jobs in England at its Jaguar and Land Rover units, Ford's senior executive in Europe, Mark Fields, said he continues to believe the company's European luxury brands will help Ford meet its previously-stated goal of delivering a third of the company's profits by mid-decade.

But Fields said he doesn't expect a quick turnaround in Jaguar's U.S. sales, which have declined sharply this year.

"We won't be growing our business significantly in the U.S. in the near term," Fields said. In Jaguar, "we have a great brand but a lousy business." He declined to make a more specific forecast.

Fields also declined to rule out the possibility of more job cuts. "If we have to do more, we will, but at this point, we don't plan to" cut more jobs.

Fields said the company also doesn't plan to drop its slow-selling small sedan, the X-type, which he said "has helped us expand the reach of the brand." But he said Jaguar has "lots of opportunities" to share more components and technologies with its sister brands in Ford's Premier Automotive Group.