We have received one or two phone calls from Jaguar and Land Rover contract hire clients, who were concerned to hear that Jaguar and Land Rover are seeking a plant in China. One Jaguar car leasing client said “I knew something like this would happen when they were taken over by Tata” They are indeed planning on opening a plant in China but our understanding is that it is to produce and supply cars in that region.

Import taxes in China increase the cost of a car by about 100% and this is what Jaguar and Land Rover are trying to circumvent. China is a rapidly growing market for luxury cars and whilst most of us don’t understand how this form of Communism works, because we thought everybody had to be equal, Rolls Royce sales are booming.

So why were our contract hire clients worried that a car like Jaguar would be made in China? Probably because they would no longer want to drive a Jaguar in future, the label made in China is not, let’s face it, very impressive; rightly or wrongly most of us still associate China with cheap and shoddy goods.

So is the reason they wouldn’t want to lease a Jaguar made in China, because of concerns about the workmanship, or is it perhaps image?  People will pay up to $1.5 million for a watch made by the fine Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe but would they if on the face, it said made in Taiwan?