DAVE PHILLIPS

IN a year when Land Rover enthusiasts across the world are celebrating Range Rover’s 50th birthday and the 40th anniversary of the Defender, it is all too easy to forget that 2020 also marks 12 years since Land Rover came under Indian ownership. It seems (to me at least) like yesterday that Tata Motors took control, but the progress made under their stewardship in just a dozen years has been remarkable.

Land Rover has had a lot of owners over the years. Founded by the former Rover company in 1948, it became part of the Leyland Group in 1967, which later became part of the troubled British Leyland empire. In 1986 it became the Rover Group, and was sold off two years later to British Aerospace. In 1994 BMW took control, but sold out to Ford in 2000. Actually it’s more complicated than that, but what do you expect when I’m trying to fit 70-odd years of history in a single paragraph?

Tata stepped in as the world slipped into recession and Ford’s famously deep pockets suddenly got a lot shallower. It was 2007, the US carmaker’s finances had hit rock bottom and they needed to sell both Land Rover and Jaguar to raise some cash. Most of the world’s car makers were also cash-strapped at the time, so there weren’t any takers among the big players. Instead, Indian companies Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra were among the front runners. Tata, famous for their trucks and the manufacture of the world’s cheapest car, liked buying British. They already owned Tetley Tea and British Steel, but on June 2, 2008, Land Rover (and Jaguar) became the jewels in their crown.

Those worried that Tata might be asset strippers and move production to India to cut costs needn’t have fretted. The Indians had enormous faith in the British management and workforce and left them to carry on doing what they did best. This was quite some accomplishment, particularly as the recession deepened and car sales slumped.

Had Tata bitten off more than it could chew? The company was certainly in a tight spot.

The British government under PM Gordon Brown refused to help out — presumably they didn’t have much confidence in the motor industry — but luckily Tata was able to pull in some favours with the Indian banks and raised sufficient capital to continue with their ambitious plans, which included a dizzying list of projected new model launches. The only big casualty was the G4 Challenge – a hugely-expensive global adventure series launched in 2003 under Ford. Tata axed the

“Aliens studying our planet would be puzzled by the vast tracts of land covered by millions of metal boxes with wheels that don’t go anywhere”

planned 2009 event, saying it would prefer to invest in new models. Which it did…

In 2010 Discovery 4 was launched, followed a year later by the Range Rover Evoque, the third member of the Range Rover family. In 2013 the second-generation Range Rover Sport was launched, while Land Rover and Jaguar were merged to form a single company, Jaguar Land Rover Ltd, which today most enthusiasts know simply by its acronym, JLR.

In 2014 the Discovery Sport was launched. Discovery 5 was unveiled late 2016 and went on sale February 2017, followed a month or two later by the Range Rover Velar. Evoque 2 came in 2018 and this year also saw the eagerly-awaited launch of the all-new Defender.

They have been an eventful 12 years, all right, dominated by JLR’S CEO, Sir Ralph Speth, who has been at the helm for ten of them. He is due to step down in September and, at the time of writing, his successor has not been announced.

What Speth has done (with the full backing of Tata) is maintain the unique appeal of both Land Rover and Jaguar. Yes, they are luxury cars, but they stand out from the crowd and are nothing like their bland German and Japanese rivals. Long may they remain so.

Whoever gets the top job, it’s a massive challenge, coming during a pandemic when car sales globally have slumped to an unprecedented low. Even before Covid-19 struck, car makers were in trouble. New car sales peaked at over 70 million in 2017 but fell to 64 million last year, when the world’s manufacturers built three million more cars than they could sell. LRM’S former HQ was situated on the edge of a sprawling disused aerodrome, in Bedfordshire, which was used as a massive storage facility for tens of thousands of unsold new cars, including Land Rovers. From our office windows we could see an endless stream of transporters bringing new cars in, but rather fewer taking them out. It was the same story at similar storage sites all over the country; indeed, the world.

Aliens studying our planet would no doubt be puzzled by the vast tracts of land covered by millions of metal boxes with wheels that don’t actually go anywhere. New car registrations in the UK were 89 per cent down in May and, even though car showrooms are now open again, worries over a post-coronavirus future will most likely see folk reluctant to trade in their old cars (see Market News, page 120).

There has been talk of Tata selling up and moving on, but I hope they don’t. Hopefully they’ll find a leader just like Speth to take Land Rover on to greater glories in the next 12 years.