Ford’s new brandscape offers mixed menu

Ford will serve up one of the world's "great brands" in a dressed-up dish but the ingredients remain the same, reports ALASTAIR SLOANE.

Specialty of the house in the Ford/Mazda cafeteria at lunch yesterday was a Tuscan salad, with almonds, spinach and vegetables tossed in a balsamic dressing. Home-cooked minestrone soup with beef and pumpkin pie were also on the menu.

BMW/Rover employees had a choice of steak, chips and salad, or tuna, ham or salmon salads. Savoury muffins did the rounds for morning tea. Lunch on Monday was smoked salmon and mushroom pasta.

Land-Rover staff used to the renowned tasty treats from the BMW kitchen (it does a cracker rack of lamb with a mustard crust) will again be spoilt for choice when they leave BMW's Mt Wellington headquarters for Ford's, at Manukau City, at the end of this month.

July 1 is the day Ford takes control of Land-Rover in New Zealand and around the world.

Ford NZ and Land-Rover Australia will set up a new company, Premier Automotive Group, based at Manukau City, under which Land-Rover NZ will operate.

But the existing Land-Rover network in New Zealand will continue unchanged in the medium term, with BMW continuing to look after Rover parts and service divisions. Land-Rover dealers will also continue to sell Rover cars.

BMW managing director Geoff Fletcher said both Ford and BMW did not want to disrupt current arrangements.

"We wish to ensure that the strong base developed for Land-Rover over past years is maintained," he said.

"Customers will therefore be assured of continuity and the same high standards that have been established in recent years."

Australian Jac Nasser, the global president of Ford, signed a nearly $10 billion agreement to buy Land-Rover from BMW and to take on its employees, 13,000 of whom work at its British operation.

The deal was sealed after nearly two months of tough negotiations which resulted in BMW taking on Land-Rover's debts, estimated to be $1 billion.

BMW also sold Rover cars to the British-based Phoenix company, headed by John Towers, a former Rover Group executive.

Ford will pay $6.6 billion up front and $3.3 billion in 2005 for Land-Rover, long regarded as the jewel in the crown of the Rover Group that BMW bought in 1994.

Nasser reckons Land-Rover is "truly one of the world's great brands" and he said Ford planned to return the four-wheel-drive specialist to profitability by 2002.

Although BMW claimed Land-Rover failed to make a profit last year, sales reached a record 178,000 vehicles worldwide, up 16 per cent on 1998, and are expected to top 200,000 this year. Sales in America alone rose 37 per cent last year.

Land-Rover and its full line-up of four-wheel-drive vehicles - Range Rover, Discovery, Freelander and Defender - will be part of Ford's London-based Premier Automotive Group, which includes Jaguar, Aston Martin, Volvo and the American Lincoln. Premier's head is Wolfgang Reitzle, until last year a senior board member at BMW.

While at BMW, Reitzle wanted it to ditch Rover cars and concentrate on Land-Rover, but he remained at odds with strategy and was dismissed along with then board chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder.

Reitzle is now responsible for the marque he wanted all along - to oversee product development, improve quality and integrate Ford parts and engines.

Already there is talk of the Defender getting a Ford diesel engine and the new Range Rover a reworked version of the Jaguar 4.0-litre V8.

Ford will complete the almost-finished new Range Rover, with its monocoque chassis. The rigid ladder chassis will be outlawed in the US from 2003. It is seen as too intrusive in collisions.

Ford will also continue with development of the Discovery, which will also use a monocoque chassis. The workhorse Defender will have a separate chassis which meets new standards.

Of the marques in the Premier Group, Jaguar has benefited most, certainly from an engineering viewpoint, since Ford bought it 10 years ago. The XJ Jaguar series appeared in 1994 and the S-Type in 1998. A smaller executive saloon to rival the BMW 3-Series is due next year.

Aston Martin has been given a new lease of life and Ford is talking about expanding the Volvo range to include a four-wheel-drive similar in design and function to the Mercedes-Benz M-Class and BMW X5.