Top Cat

Ford has announced it is in negotiations with Tata Motors of India to sell the money-hemorrhaging Jaguar Cars division. No price has been agreed upon, but Ford likely will lose massive amounts of money on the British automaker it bought in 1989 for $2.5 billion.

Tata Motors, a division of The Tata Group, one of India’s oldest and largest business conglomerates, made headlines in January with the unveiling of the Nano—a tiny, $2,500 car. If the company buys Jaguar, Tata Motors will have a $98,060 car on its roster as well: the 2008 Jaguar XKR coupe, which I recently test-drove.

Think of it this way: A buyer could have this stunningly beautiful Tata Jaguar or … 39 Tata Nanos. Not that U.S. buyers would be confronted with that choice. While the Nano gets superior city gas mileage—50 miles per gallon compared with the Jag XKR’s 15 mpg—the Nano cannot meet U.S. safety standards, and likely will never be sold in this country.

So let’s talk Jaguar.

Anyone spending nearly $100,000 for a vehicle should expect it to testify to the buyer’s good taste and intelligence. The Jaguar XKR will do that. The only competition at this level would come from Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, but none produces something this beautiful to look at.

Everywhere I drove, the XKR drew rave comments about its appearance.

The Coke-bottle shape is both elegant and functional from an aerodynamic standpoint (returning a sports-car-worthy 0.31 coefficient of drag). The sleek body rests atop special 20-inch wheels that tack $5,000 onto the base price of the car. The monster tires are among the biggest I’ve ever seen on a road car. They look wide enough to give a dragster maximum grip at launch.