Appartently, owning the ‘James Bond’ brand has serious appeal to everyone except Ford Motor Company. It seems the bidding makes sense on both sides of the fence. Ford Motor Company is struggling to ‘right’ their boat for some time and Aston Martin is losing money like Mike Tyson, but the bidding public may get a luxury brand bargain (If you call Billionaires ‘public’). The surprise is that Jaguar is still not up for grabs, although we’ve been saying Aston would go first for months.
Top bids for Aston Martin may exceed $1.2 Billion, which seems like a lot but not when you consider the losses it has racked up, more than $500 Million in 2005 and this year will finish just as bad. What went wrong? Besides the fact that American car companies have a horrible track record when it comes to marketing a luxury brand car, hum, nope that’s about it.

Jaguar on the other hand is doing well, strong sales across the board. Jaguar, in our opinion, my have dealt Aston Martin the final blow because the new XK looks remarkably similar to the Aston models and Americans only spend big bucks for luxury cars that really separate themselves in the market place. At least, that’s the latest trend. Cadillac has learned this lesson well and is chasing the younger money, Lincoln still can’t figure it out, Acura lost to Lexus for this reason and history is constantly repeating itself. Heck Chrysler even dressed itself up all pretty and attracted Daimler to come in and buy them out so it could enter the luxury market (In this case, Mercedes is the loser, but Chrysler won big).
Jaguar has always remained on its’ own territory and for this reason, may even survive the slaughter to stay with Ford. This would be a great deal for Jaguar because Ford has done wonders for the British mark, markedly improving reliability and quality.
The math makes the case even stronger;
Most European cars count on the U.S. for nearly 60% of their business, Jaguar is no different, however, Aston Martin sold only about 1300 of its’ 4500 yearly total to the U.S. market. Jaguar somehow, has been able to maintain its’ appeal in the U.S. market while Aston Martin has floundered.

Jaguar has taken some lumps, but their current model line-up has done well and their recent introduction of the 2007 XK will do well because to Americans it will seem a bargain Aston Martin. What the new owners of Aston will do to re-establish that separation from Jaguar should interesting, but as always, the customer will win in the end. Let the battle of the Brits begin…so long as Jaguar wins.