Re: Lord Mandelson plays down speculation over LandRover bailout (Daily Telegraph)

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Old news.

It's an announcement that came one day before Tata announced they'd be spending £500 Million of their own money on Jaguar Land Rover...

Reply to
William Black
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Old news or otherwise I'm unsure as to why the British Government should be bailing out an Indian company.

Reply to
EMB

Almost certainly because it'd be cheaper than paying dole to the people who work there.

Plus the LR product is a good one sold all over the world.

Tata probably don't care.

The Indian army is looking for a new small softskin.

If they get the contract Tata can put the LR factory in a box and ship it to India or they can build TKD kits in the UK.

Which would you prefer?

There could be advantages in an LR factory in India.

For a start, spares would probably be cheaper...

And they probably wouldn't change the designs at the rate they do in the UK... :-)

Reply to
William Black

The Indians seem to have kept Royal Enfield going in quite a satisfactory manner. Traditional design with useful improvements - just what a lot of us want from LR.

Reply to
Rich B

I have a Royal Enfield Interceptor that just might legally belong to the =

Indians. It was retrieved from a shipment of CKD bikes on their way from =

Southampton to India the day after Norton bought RE. I paid =A350 for it =

2=20 days after that and it's still in its packing crate. No-one at the time=20 was too sure whether Enfield (India) had actually paid for the shipment, =

or not. One thing is for sure ... they ain't getting it back now :-)

Unfortunately Rich, those of us that want LR to stay loyal to the marque =

aren't the ones who buy new motors every three years. There's no money=20 for LR in used vehicles.

--=20 Regards

Steve G

Reply to
SteveG

True but I doubt the huge market of India changes their motor every three years. I suspect that market wants something that is off road capable, reliable, easy to fix when it isn't and tough as old boots. With the growing affulent classes in India there is room for a comfortable 4x4 like the Disco II but not the ponce wagons of the Range Rover Sport class.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Unfortunately Rich, those of us that want LR to stay loyal to the marque aren't the ones who buy new motors every three years. There's no money for LR in used vehicles.

---------------

I thought I read somewhere that a largish chunk of LR income was flogging spares.

Reply to
William Black

I've spent a lot of time in India in the past three years.

Rural transport was often a locally made Suzuki/Maruti Gypsy, which is slow, under-powered and usually considered rubbish by everyone, including the cops who use loads of them. Even the farmers have stopped buying them

The 'posh' 4x4 is the Tata Sumo, which is still blessed with leaf springs at the back, weighs about two tonnes and uses a 2.2 L petrol engine.

What looks like a Toyota Land Cruiser isn't. Well, it is, sort of.

It's something called a 'Toyota Qualis' which looks like an old Land Cruiser with the leaf springs, but with no four wheel drive equipment...

The serious money imports real Toyota Land Cruisers

Oh, and I did see a single Range Rover last year in Bombay...

The Indian army currently uses the venerable Mahindra Jeep copy, which is why you don't see many (or many Mahindra civil 4x4's) in civilian use. In many areas where they'd be very useful India has a terrorist problem. Mahindra have a replacement coming, the Axe, if they can build it so that it works...

Tata access to the Land Rover development and design facility will mean they can launch an Indian built civilian 4x4 with reasonable comfort reasonably quickly, and the wealthy rural farmer would probably be in the market for a Tata built Land Rover Defender, the 'Flimi' (the film people and rich tycoons and etc) would probably like the Discovery II. Its 'drug dealer chic' styling would appeal to them...

Reply to
William Black

Dave, it's horses for courses but the Defender hasn't been sold at a sustainable profit (if any profit at all) for as long as I can remember. Unless you have a healthy demand for new vehicles then there's not much of a used car market either - the two go hand in hand. The military are big enough buyers of new vehicles to keep a company like LR afloat - they may buy large numbers but they only do that every 5 - 8 years. You also don't plan your product line on the basis of what one single market place wants ... unless that market is the USA because that's where LR makes it's money.

Reply to
SteveG

Unless LR are different from other car companies then they only make decent money from spares for relatively new vehicles because they tend to be maintained by the dealer network. Vehicles like Series motors, old Rangies and S1/S2 Disco's are generally maintained by the owner (or independent garage) using pattern parts or oem bits sourced through outfits like Britparts or Paddocks. None of that money gets back to LR.

Reply to
SteveG

I'm aware of that. But at the same time they are happily doing the whole EU thing that basically kills the entire LR product line deader than a dead thing.

Not that most of the world will care where it was actually made - they are more concerned with a reliable vehicle at a decent price.

Reply to
EMB

On or around Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:53:32 +1300, EMB enlightened us thusly:

not really. EU rules may yet kill off the defender-as-we-know-it, but the disco, freeloader, RR are all fine. And in the so-called developed world, there are more of those than there are defenders anyway.

Still quite a few 90s being bought round here, mind - but then there are some good dealers and the fourtrak is no longer comeptition - there were a LOT of fourtraks about this area. Not all the people want 16ft+ of doublecab pickup, some of them rightly spot that the SWB trucks are better for hauling trailers in narrow spaces, and the only real candidate in that market is the 90 now that the Daihatsu is no more.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

The main problem here is that the 'Defender as a car' is no longer a six seater.

It's horribly big and expensive as a four seater.

Reply to
William Black

On or around Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:40:27 -0000, "William Black" enlightened us thusly:

ah, well, that's partly because EVERYBODY knows that if ANYONE sits in a sideways seat, they will CERTAINLY die.

Even if it's the ones in the back of a disco, with belts.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Oh yes, everyone who's ever sat in mine has died horribly...

I assume that they do actually have some proof that they're not safe.

As a general rule even the EC doesn't pass expensive legislation for no good reason.

Reply to
William Black

They reckon they have proof that seatbelts in sideways facing seats are worse than no seatbelts at all, bodies are OK about bending suddenly forwards, but when bent violently sideways, your ribs crush your own internal organs. That's why seatbelts weren't required in sideways-facing seats as people were found to be more likely to survive in a crash without them than they would be if they were using belts in sideways facing seats. This is according to the Construction and Use lot when I was phoning around about my pinz (which has 12 sideways facing seats). Sideways facing seats aren't compatible with seatbelts unless they're very elaborate, and seatbelts are mandatory in newer vehicles, therefore no sideways facing seats in newer vehicles 'cos you shouldn't have seatbelts with them!

Sometimes the reason is there, but you've just not seen it. I do wish that when we're told what we can and can't do, we're also told why that is rather than just told to obey.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

On or around Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:06:24 -0000, "William Black" enlightened us thusly:

I think they fell foul of the same legislation as crewbuses. Now, a 10-ft long bench seat with 6 people on it and no restraints is likely to end in tears in a shunt. It's also not the same thing as a defender, nor is that the same as the single ones in the discos.

Reply to
Austin Shackles

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