Mergers & Ownership History
A closer look at the corporate mergers, sales, and separations behind the brief timeline.
Jaguar and Land Rover both passed through British Leyland, the state-backed conglomerate formed in 1968 by merging British Motor Holdings (which owned Jaguar) with the Leyland Motor Corporation (which owned Rover, and therefore Land Rover). British Leyland's troubled 1970s and 80s — strikes, underinvestment, and inconsistent quality — are a well-documented low point for both marques.
Jaguar was spun out and privatized in 1984, then acquired outright by Ford in 1989 — the first time Jaguar left British ownership. Land Rover took a different path: it stayed with the Rover Group, which BMW bought in 1994.
BMW's ownership of the Rover Group (1994–2000) proved difficult — commonly referred to in the British press at the time as BMW's 'English Patient' — and BMW split the group apart in 2000: Land Rover was sold to Ford (joining Jaguar under Ford's Premier Automotive Group), while the Rover passenger-car business was sold separately and became MG Rover, which was unrelated to Land Rover from that point on.
Ford brought Jaguar and Land Rover together for the first time as sibling brands from 2000, before selling the combined Jaguar Land Rover business to India's Tata Motors in 2008 for roughly $2.3 billion, in the middle of the global financial crisis — the ownership structure that has held since.