Jaguar launches XJ40 models

Press, 26 February 1987, Page 34

Jaguar launches XJ40 models

Jaguar New Zealand, Ltd, launched the eagerlyawaited XJ4O models, which will replace the XJ6 Series 3 saloons, at Taupo last week. The new models will still be known as the XJ6 and Sovereign, but they are entirely new cars.

The new Jaguar range, launched in Europe last September, is by no means a novelty to Jaguar employees. Over the last six years the Coventrybased quality car manufacturer has spent the equivalent of about $6OO million and devoted more than 1000 man-years of research to its development.

Prototypes of the new range have clocked up more than 5.5 million miles in the course of world-wide testing and Jaguar even went so far as to take plaster casts of New York’s notorious potholes in order that they could be incorporated in its British test circuit.

The XJ4o’s development programme injected new life into Jaguar. In 1980 the company was a part of ailing State-owned BL and its productivity record was appalling. In 1981 its 8286 employees built less than 14,000 care — less than 1.3 per worker — and they had quality problems, particularly with the electrics.

In that year Jaguar lost the equivalent of about $95 million.

Last year it was estimated that Jaguar would make a profit of about $375 million while its 11,000 employees would build around 43,000 care — nearly four per worker.

Jaguar was sold to the public in 1984 and since those days it has never looked back. At the beginning of this decade a Jaguar was regarded as a bad joke in the United States. Today about 47 per cent of Jaguar shares are held by Americans.

American sharebrokers, who sent their analysts to Britain to Inspect the Brown’s Lane, Coventry, factory, and to sample the new range in September, are most impressed. Merrill Lynch reported that it was a car with all the essential ingredients for the American market while Hoare Govett expressed pleasure that in appearance the car had not been radically altered and. that It obviously had superb electronics. ■ Sir John Egan, Jaguar’s 46-year-old chairman, reckons the company has a long way to go. Speaking of Mercedes and BMW, Sir John was quoted as saying: “We don’t think we’re the best in the world yet. They’ve had two decades of good management at Mercedes and they are 10 times our size.”

Productivity has to “continuously improve,” he claims. His aim is to produce six care per employee by 1990.