Tata: No Jaguar or Land Rover vehicles will be built in India

Doubts surrounding the passage of the historically British marques Jaguar and Land Rover into Indian ownership have consistently dogged the deal since its first rumored inception. Now that Tata is well underway in its new position as owner of the brands, it is assuring customers that there are no plans to shift production to the Tata Group's homeland.

Instead, it plans to run Jaguar/Land Rover as any other of its numerous subsidiaries: as a business. Any decisions made for the business will be intended to preserve and improve its reputation, products and profitability.

Ratan Tata, chairman of the eponymous conglomerate, said, "There is no insistence from us to bring these brands to India. The launch of these brands in India will take their own natural course and will be a commercial decision," reports Edmunds. "Both Jaguar and Land Rover have looked at India and are rather surprised with the potential of the Indian market. However, when we do bring in these models, they will all be CBU [completely built-up] imports."

The relaxed pace of Indian introduction - if it is ever to happen - and the clear intent to preserve the Jaguar/Land Rover operations as they stand, with only U.K.-sourced models for the time being, should serve to allay some of the fears of those that have been reluctant to accept the new ownership's potential to benefit the company. But there is a great deal of potential for not only preserving but improving Jaguar/Land Rover through its new ownership. Earlier this year, we reported that due to the infusion of cash and proliferation of new models expected to come through now that Tata is underwriting things, sales could as much as double by 2012.

Economic and market conditions have likely darkened that forecast somewhat, but even so, news of new name registrations, halo models and high-performance variants show the company has more life now than at any time in the recent past.