Well, it's coming down to the wire --- Not in Iowa, where Barack Obama tonight decisively 
proved he is never to be discounted ever again for any reason ... He's in it for the long run! Now, 'Our Personal Soapbox' over, we can tell you it's coming down to the wire elsewhere in the world, specifically in the biggest-manufacturing industry on the globe, that of cars and big business, and especially for India-based vehicle-maker, Tata. Produced from 1963 through 1965, Sean Connery's character, "James Bond", already had a cool factor, but when he drove the DB5 in the film "Goldfinger", and though Aston Martin is not going to be directly involved with the sale of Jaguar and Land Rover to, probably, Tata, after every James Bond featuring an Aston Martin , interest in the marque skyrocketed. (Photo Above --- Aston Martin made improvements on their then-popular DB4 model, thus DB5 pictured above was was born; and below, Pierce Brosnan seems relaxed posing in front of the car he drives when he becomes "Bond, James Bond". It's an Aston Martin "Vanquish" with a 12-cylinder engine in a "V" configuration). 
The "talk in the paddocks" of tracks worldwide says Tata is soon to be the proud owners of two bouncing baby car companies --- Jaguar and Land Rover, both of which unapologetically continue to manufacture cars and light trucks that are powerful, heavy gas-guzzlers whose prices start north of $50,000 (there is one Land Rover model, though, their LR2, with a base price just a tick under $40K). Potentially, Tata could soon find themselves in possession of important and valuable pieces of Ford/Jaguar's unsuccessful F1 team, which ran for five seasons. India has already been fielding a sort-of "national" F1 team, using Spyker chassis. In September, 1986, luxury marque Spyker announced the acquisition of Midland F1 Racing, the first, and so far only Russian-owned F1 team, at least that we know of.
All these rumors have been around for weeks, even months. Today, January 3, 2008, a statement released by Lewis Booth, executive vice president, Ford of Europe and Premier Automotive Group and also Chairman, Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo and Ford of Europe, lends even more credence to all the talk:
“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."
The above statement, released worldwide this evening by Ford Motor's headquarters in Dearborn, MI, is only 74-or-so words in length, yet those few words are potentially worth many, many tens of millions of dollars, with the futures of two of the world's iconic car companies at stake. (Photo --- Mark Webber in the Jaguar F1 race car; the team ran five seasons, 2000 through 2004).
In BusinessTalk 101, it means that Ford and Tata are very close to an agreement on Tata's taking over those two crown jewels in Ford's crown. It also lets other possible buyers of Jaguar and Land Rover know unequivocally that now is the time to make a bid and get it to the right people at FoMoCo.
Ford bought a piece of Aston Martin in 1987, then purchased Jaguar in 1990; in 1991, Ford also took over Aston Martin and had owned it outright until last year's auction.
Aston Martin was sold early in 2007 for just over $925 million to a consortium including Prodrive's David Richards (who until 2004 had headed BAR, the F1 team formerly known as British American Tobacco Racing), Aston Martin collector John Sinders, and Kuwaiti companies Investment Dar and Adeem Investment Co. Just two months after its purchase of that large stake in Aston Martin, Investment Dar reported receiving "several" offers of US$722 million for their piece of the company, 50% more than they had paid for it barely 60 days earlier. Ford has retained a 40% stake in Aston Martin, worth about US$80 million given the dollar's current value. (Photo --- A Tata-made SUV called "Sumo").
ProDrive, the company headed by David Richards, is one of the most-respected "boutique racing 
fabrication" shops which the UK is so well-known for among the sport's cognoscenti. On their own website, ProDrive introduces themselves thusly: "Prodrive is one of the world’s leading motorsport businesses. For more than 20 years, we have been running race and rallying programmes for some of the biggest names in the sport, including Subaru, Aston Martin, Ford, Porsche, Honda and BMW. At the same time we provide race and rally cars for private teams." Prodrive's site also states: "We currently run programmes for the Subaru World Rally Team in the World Rally Championship; for Aston Martin Racing in world sports car series; and for the Ford Performance Racing team in the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series."
Prodrive also has had plans to enter F1 for some years now, and 2008 was their target season, taking advantage of new F1 rules allowing "customer cars". The new F1 Concorde Agreement, which all teams and participants must sign and agree to and adhere to in order to participate in the series in any capacity, has been "read" more than a few different ways. Many think that the new rules say that new F1 teams could be formed not to develop, build, test and race both the engines and chassis, as the series traditionally calls for, but merely to purchase year-old chassis and engines from their respective manufacturers. But because of the internecine battles about this new rule, typical for any change in F1, no matter how small or inconsequential (though this change is, admittedly, huge), Prodrive says it will be at least 2009 before they can enter F1. (Photo --- Jaguar's Super Eight has a supercharged V8 which pumps out 400-horsepower; it's built on Jag's XJ sedan long wheelbase model. Click on our "Road Test" section, which is on the right-hand margin of each page, in order to read a complete review of this car).
There are some very interesting possibilities for the future, specifically for Jaguar, if it does become part of Tata. Interesting mainly because India is fielding their own Formula One race team. Called "Force India Formula One Team", Tata's purchase of Jaguar could quite possibly bring a lot of F1 technology to that country, as Ford fielded a Jaguar-branded F1 team from 2000 through 2004. Ford purchased Stewart Formula One from former F1 champion and racing analyst Sir Jackie Stewart. Even with drivers including Mark Webber, Eddie Irvine and Christian Klien, much of Jaguar F1's seasons were debacles, bringing not praise, but derision from fans across the world, expecting more from gigantic Ford, Jaguar's owner and main benefactor. (Photo --- Land Rover's new LR2, known in other nations as Freelander).
We would guess that much of the technical know-how Jaguar F1 either developed themselves and/or 
bought and paid-for during their five-year career in that most-expensive of all racing series, is still squirreled away in boxes, on computer discs and hard drives, and in the hands and minds of the skilled people and talented drivers who worked over the years for Jaguar F1 ... And perhaps Tata, a major manufacturing and political power in India, sometimes called the GM, Ford and Chrysler combined of the gigantic sub-continent, might find themselves in a position to create a partnership with Force India F1. With that company's money and reach, and a country which is just beginning its climb into becoming a First World member, now populated by millions of highly-educated people, if the Jaguar/Land Rover sale becomes a reality, Force India could become a major force, of many kinds, in the world of motor racing.
Tata is a huge vehicle-maker, yet we've not seen their products on most of this side of the world, and in our particular spot of North America. Tata Motors was established in 1945, when the company began making trains. Tata Motors was first listed on the NY Stock Exchange in 2004. Tata is India’s largest automobile and commercial vehicle manufacturing company. It is also the world's 5th largest commercial vehicle manufacturer. It is part of the Tata Group, and is headquartered in Mumbai. In 2004 it also bought Daewoo’s truck manufacturing unit in South Korea (while GM was busy buying the car-making part of Daewoo). (Photo --- Tata's "Elegante" sedan).
Motors' range of passenger cars is still not complete by international standards. In commercial vehicles, Tata Motors commands an amazing 65% market share in their home market. That’s similar to the market share which Toyota enjoys in the cities surrounding their headquarters in Toyota City, which is near Nagoya, about 300 miles south of Tokyo.
Tata has a workforce of 22,000 employees in three plants and other offices across the country. Tata
There's much more information on Tata and their soon-to-finally-be-announced deal with FoMoCo to buy Land Rover and Jaguar just a few postings below, so scroll down a bit for the "rest of the story".
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