VW. I mean Porsche, of course, buying all three: Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar. Outlandish? Less so than the surprise deal with VW at the time.

Think about it. If you forget the VW deal for a moment, Porsche is a surprisingly good candidate. Porsche has the money. Porsche with Land-Rover, Jaguar and Volvo could be very interesting and complementary. Much more so then VW. All three are relatively small brands, very characteristic, very known, very individualistic, very dedicated and loyal customers and potentially very high margin. Sounds like a description of Porsche, doesn’t it?

Jaguar has made an incrediable progress regarding reliability and customer satisfaction. Jaguar is now in Lexus territory. The only real problem is the “conservative” design, which is about to change. So a turnaround of Jaguar might be easier then most assume, because Ford has done the har work.

With Porsche process and productivity know-how, I would bet that all three could become quite profitable, quicker then VW will be turned around. Much less complicated then VW structural problems. All three would benefit from Porsche-branded engineering, engines, chassis, processes without harming Porsche’s core business. Each of them would have it’s own identity and could do something for the others.

Development and production processes could be much more flexible and faster then any cooperation with VW. Neither Land Rover, nor Jaguar or Volvo are direct competitors to Porsche. Jaguar’s two seaters are more GT than sportscars and Landies are no threat to the Cayennes. Ford has already sold the only real competitor to Porsches: Aston-Martin that is.

If it weren’t for the VW committment, my money would be on Porsche. This potential gold mine of the four brands for Porsche makes the VW deal look quite risky in comparison.

What a shame, what a waste.

Photo c2007 by 117355

technorati tags:Jaguar, Aston-Martin, Land Rover, Porsche, Automobile Industry, automotive, VW, Volvo

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Watching an episode of the second season of “Las Vegas” with James Caan, I was fascinated by the car he drives as his film persona Ed Deline. The first shots of the car were so short, I never even bothered to look closer and find out what model it is.

Then the car started to play some kind of role. And I thought, nooo, this is no Aston, it looks fake, a bit like a replica based on a Corvette or Mustang. It looks…

…, mmmh, ugly really. Cheap.

So my curioisty had been awakend and I googled a little, after a few tries, voilà. The car is the real thing, AM has really produced this, ahm, thing in 2003 and called it Aston Martin DB AR1 . Check out Tim Cottingham’ s is an interesting Aston page about the American Roadster (hence AR).  Flickr has a few more pics here. Some 99 were made for the US, less than 10 ended up in Europe and the only RWD one is currently for sale.

Aston probably didn’t know what to do with this no-beauty, so they gave it a no-name. However it is a good fit to a city like Las Vegas: artificial, flashy and new rich. And interesting and fascinating. And it doesn’t have a roof.

Photo CC 2005 by Dan Smith

technorati tags:Aston Martin, Film cars, Aston Martin DB AR1

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