Last week, two of India’s largest automakers — Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra — shocked motown when they expressed interest in acquiring Ford’s marquee brands Jaguar and Land Rover. The acquisition that could cost them up to $1.5 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) will not only get the buyer two legendary vehicle brands, but also catapult it to the super league of SUV technology. The move is primarily to buy technology that goes into the Land Rover — known to be the last word in SUVs. It is believed that more than half of the Land Rovers built since the first one in 1948 are still on the roads or, perhaps, plying through bushes and hills.

Tatas as well as the Mahindras will benefit greatly from access to Land Rover’s body-on-chassis technology for future SUV models. The buyer will also gain entry into the lucrative American market and access to a dealer network of more than 200. Land Rover’s technology can open a new market for SUVs in India, which is now dominated by M&M’s Scorpio and Tata Safari. Honda CR-V dominates the luxury SUV segment.

But the catch is in buying Jaguar, which has been associated as a Royal British brand for many decades. It is difficult to fathom whether Tata Motors or M&M will have the wherewithal to fund this ultra-luxury, niche brand’s R&D, maintain an expensive workforce and capital infusion to club assembly lines to cut costs. Tata Motors and M&M do not have any product that suits the American market. This could pose a big hurdle to use the dealer network in the US.

Even Ford, with all its resources and cost-effective platform sharing, was unable to turn Jaguar around in the past decade. Ford has put the company on the block despite successfully making the Jaguar X type along side its largest selling Mondeo, cutting development costs to a fraction. However, that did not help Jaguar get the sales numbers.