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Jaguar Land Rover cutting production in face of falling demand

LONDON — Jaguar Land Rover will reduce or stop production on certain days at two of its British factories over the next few weeks as Britain's biggest carmaker pursues cost-cutting measures in response to falling demand. JLR posted a 2.3% drop in retail sales in the three months to the end of December and has targeted billions of pounds worth of savings to tackle falling diesel demand in Europe and a tough sales environment in China. The firm will halt production on selected days over a four-week period from late February at its Castle Bromwich factory in central England and stop production on some half or full days at its nearby Solihull facility until the end of March. "The external environment remains challenging for our industry and the company is taking decisive actions to achieve the necessary operational efficiencies to safeguard long-term success," the company said in a statement. "We have confirmed that Solihull and Castle Bromwich will make some minor changes to their production schedules to reflect fluctuating demand globally, whilst still meeting customer needs." The move is not connected to coronavirus, a spokeswoman said, which prompted Fiat Chrysler to warn on Thursday that a European plant could shut down within two to four weeks if Chinese parts suppliers cannot get back to work. Related Video:

Jaguar design chief Ian Callum rules out station wagons

If you liked the idea of a Jaguar wagon and were secretly hoping that the British automaker might bring one over, we have some unfortunate news for you. Not only will the company not bring any wagons to the North American market, but according to design chief Ian Callum, it won't be making any at all. "The [wagon] market is massively shrinking. I'm very sad about it but it's a very difficult market to justify," Callum told Automotive News Europe. German automakers Audi, BMW, and Mercedes can make wagons work because their home market is the largest for wagons in the world and any wagons they sell elsewhere are just chocolate icing on the Black Forest cake. For its part, Jaguar has produced two wagon models in the X-Type and the previous XF Sportbrake. That's a shame in Jaguar's case, because the XFR-S Sportbrake was a heck of a ride that left us wondering why anyone would want something taller. Those of like mind, we suppose, will just have to content themselves instead with German wagons like the Audi A6 Allroad, BMW 3 Series, Mercedes E-Class, and Volkswagen Golf SportWagen – and hope that Volvo doesn't get squeezed out of the wagon market as well. Related Video:

Harry bravely drives Jaguar XJ-S V12 1,000 miles to Monaco

There are a great many cars we'd like to take on a transcontinental journey – especially across Europe. And a good portion of them would probably be grand tourers with twelve-cylinder engines. We're just not sure we'd be as brave as Harry Metcalfe, who drove his 1980 Jaguar XJ-S V12 from his home in the UK all the way down to Monaco. Don't get us wrong, the XJ-S looks like a rather comfortable ride, and with the V12 is surely both smooth and powerful. It's just that Jags didn't have the best reputation for reliability back then, and we'd have been at least a little worried that we wouldn't make it all the way across France on this trip. Nor are we sure we would have wanted to without air conditioning. The model in question, as you'll find out if you watch the video, is an early 1980 example, produced just before Jaguar updated the line with the High-Efficiency versions. As such, it's got a bit more power and shorter gearing than later models. The XJS (as it would later be labeled) would undergo a number of updates over the following years, and would stay on the market until 1996 when the XK came along to relieve it. By Harry's reckoning, his early XJ-S was every bit as good as the Porsche 928 and other front-engined GTs of the era, and would have been more fondly remembered if it hadn't had to live in the shadow of the E-Type that came before. You'll want to watch the 17-minute video of the journey, undertaken for a cover story to appear in the September issue of Octane, to see for yourself. Related Video: