The chief executive of Jaguar-Land Rover yesterday predicted a bright future of the two Midland luxury carmakers.
Geoff Polites said he was optimistic even if Ford goes ahead with its decision to offload the companies as it looks to tackle losses which reached $12.7 billion (£6.2 billion) last year.
"We have a really good cycle plan with Jaguar," Mr Polites said at the International Automotive Show in Frankfurt. "What does the buyer get? Well he gets that cycle plan, the XK which is great car, the XF which is a great car and will be successful, and now we are working on the XJ replacement.
"We are totally focused on ratcheting ourselves up every time, so the buyer gets that mentality. The same goes with Land Rover. It is a full book of products, but we are not finished yet. We have other plans and will continue to do that and build on the momentum."
Jaguar-Land Rover was a profitable company, said Mr Polites, and it would continue to be so. "A new owner might be in a position to do things for us that Ford, quite frankly, can't at the moment, because it is constrained with capital as it fights its battles in North America.
"That is the reason they want to sell us. It's not because they don't believe in what we are doing. We were in the US last week to get early approvals on the XJ replacement and it sailed through no problem. They are not stopping any of our plans despite the sale process."
Mr Polites said Jaguar-Land Rover would get its share of the £1 billion pledged by Ford for environ-mental technology, with the two companies already contributing £700 million for projects like stop start technology for Freelander 2.
The system - which stops the engine when the vehicle is stationary - will achieve a 10 per cent improvement on fuel economy.
Both companies, which together employ 15,000 people in the Midlands, would also benefit from the improvements made to Ford engines which they use in their vehicles.
The sale of Aston Martin had given Ford some lessons in how to sell a company, said Mr Polites. "The Aston thing has gone pretty well, but it looks like Aston Martin may have had some more capital to do their products.
"That is the sort of situation we would like to find ourselves in. We are not short of ideas for either brand, but the question is you have to make a business case and you have to fund them.
"We haven't been in that position for a little while to fund some of the things we would like to do. Maybe the new owners could help - there is an upside."
Mr Polites said he could not comment on the sale process, apart from presentations had been made to all the prospective bidders who were comfortable with what they had been shown.
"From now on it is up to Ford. Ford will decide who, what, when and how much. The sale process is not an excuse for us not to deliver. Everybody understands what we have to do. We can deliver the plan and that will provide us with a really strong future going forward.
"Changing of ownership or not, there are no guarantees going forward. We have to make sure we continue to work on our costs, our quality, get our sales results, build the right level at the right time."
