Recently it has been reported that Ford have accepted Indian manufacturer Tata Motors bid for Jaguar Land Rover over those of rival bidders Mahindra & Mahinda and the private equity firm One Equity Partners. I’ve avoided reporting that news until now as it didn’t come with an official Ford announcement but that has all changed overnight.

Ford has released the following statement that confirms what we have all suspected over the previous few weeks. There is no mention of price (suspected to be around the $US2 Billion mark) but it would appear that there is still some “negotiating” to take place.

“Ford is committed to focused negotiations at a more detailed level with Tata Motors concerning the potential sale of the combined Jaguar Land Rover business.There is still a considerable amount of work to do, and while no final decision has been made, we will proceed with further substantive discussions with Tata Motors over the forthcoming weeks with a view to securing an agreement that is in the best interests of all parties concerned,”said Lewis Booth, Executive VP of both Ford of Europe and Premiere Auto Group.

From the little we know Tata Motors intends to continue the manufacture of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles in the UK and combine its current UK based design people with those of Jaguar. Tata are keen to establish a European development centre and already have their Euopean based engineers working from temporary accommodation at Warwick University, just a few kilometres away from JLR’s design centre at Gaydon and Whitley.

[Source: Motivemag]