THE "ENGLISH PATIENT" AND CUTTING DEAD WEIGHT

The return of "the English Patient?"

Back in the days when BMW owned the Rover Group, stakeholders and journalists often joked Rover was the "English Patient" because of its huge consumption of resources and poor condition. BWM eventually gave up on transfusing life into "the English Patient," and parted out Rover. Ford Motor Company (tm) picked up the storied Land Rover franchise as an addition to its other "premium" British holdings--Jaguar and Aston-Martin.

Jaguar, of course, was a former sibling of Land Rover as part of another failing automaking enterprise-- the hapless British Leyland conglomerate.

Now, Reuters and the Sunday Times (London) report that FoMoCo is considering the "Bold Moves" of dumping both Land Rover and Jaguar as part of the "Way Forward."

Jaguar has cost FoMoCo billions over the past decade and a half and is seen by most as a drag on the Premium Automotive Group's profits.

Land Rover has been a part of FoMoCo for a much shorter time, but it has produced mixed results. Erosion of the SUV segment and increased competition in the "premium SUV" niche are apparently triggering speculation that FoMoCo is going to bail out.

"The Sunday Times said Bill Ford had told staff in a memo last week that adviser Kenneth Leet would explore strategic options. It added, however, that its sources in Detroit pointed out that Leet's expertise was in mergers and acquisitions, making it more likely Ford would look to sell assets, including Jaguar."

Old Detroiters have long criticized FoMoCo's expensive obsession with Jaguar. Often, Jaguar is rhetorically flogged for almost everything that's gone wrong in Dearborn's luxury and near-luxury strategy. Some believe that Lincoln's failure to compete with Cadillac's resurgence, much less Lexus, is the direct result of "protecting Jaguar."

And while FoMoCo has dramatically improved Jaguar's quality, FoMoCo often has floundered in determining what to do with the Big Cat. Attempts to broaden the brand with an AWD Mondeo-based sedan failed. Competing in Formula One failed and brought down FoMoCo's long F1 tradition with it (a persuasive argument remains that Jaguar's natural competition habitat has always been sports car racing, not the F1 circus). Jaguar's retro-styled sports tourers haven't shown the claws to recapture the XKE mystique, much less take on Corvette, Viper, Porsche or even the Italians on the road or on the track.

Other than heritage and some DNA (neither of which FoMoCo has figured out how to fully exploit), what does Jaguar really bring to Ford's table?

Similarly, while Land Rover invented the "luxury SUV," it now seems like a bit player. While Land Rover products probably still are more capable off-road than its competition, Land Rover's exclusivity has suffered. Surging fuel prices and a perceived lag in technology and on-road performance do not help Ford reestablish Land Rover's segment leadership. Moreover, Ford's attempts to "broaden" the brand haven't borne the quantity of fruit expected in a cutthroat marketplace.

Of course, then there's the issue of British labor . . . .

Jaguar and Land Rover may now seem surplus in Ford's fight for survival. However, if Ford is selling controlling stakes in assets it neither understands nor fully uses, perhaps they will also spin off the Lincoln-Mercury division, too.

Losing weight now.

One of Colin Chapman's most quotable maxims is "add lightness."

Indeed, the power-to-weight ratio may be the single most telling benchmark in automotive engineering.

Of course, the weight side of the equation impacts more areas of driving dynamics than the power side. Chapman understood this. Chapman's Lotus cars repeatedly revolutionized competition standards, often because of Chapman's adherence to this simple idea.

Modern road car builders, however, are caught in the triple bind of increased cost pressures, increased crashworthiness, and increased gadgetry. These market pressures have forced auto engineers to increase weight and increase power merely to maintian (or modestly improve) the status quo.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found that "the average 2006-model vehicle weighs a portly 4,142 pounds - nearly 500 pounds more than the average vehicle sold 10 years earlier."

Even boring appliance-grade vehicles, such as Toyota's Avalon and Volkswagen's Jetta have ballooned in the past decade (up 205 lbs. and 540 lbs., respectively, according to an Automotive News analysis.)

Sporting machines are not immune. BMW's 3 Series has porked up 540 lbs. since 1996. And Ford Motor Company's new Shelby GT500 mutes the effect of its 500 h.p. by lugging around over two tons of weight. GT500 would be even heavier if it had the independent rear suspension that so many armchair "experts" claim it should have.

Generally a 10% reduction in weight is worth about 7% better fuel efficiency, according to the American Plastics Counsel. More importantly, every 100 pounds of weight reduction will improve acceleration (for free) by about 1/10 of a second in a standing-start 1/4th mile. Cutting weight can have similar positive effects on braking and handling.

But cutting weight will require serious rethinking of how automobiles and light trucks are made. Triangulated tubular space frames, exotic carbon-fiber monocoques and outstanding power-to-weight engines are commonplace in racing, but rare and often cost-prohibitive in road cars. Heavy sheet-metal stampings and cast iron still rule the streets, even as aluminum makes some inroads.

Wrapped up in the new pressure to cut weight is the risk that smaller and lighter translates into less durable, less functional and less satisfying.

Substituting "quality" to obtain "lightness" simply isn't an option. Neither is abandoning affordability for lighness a practical solution.

Development of light, powerful "twin-charged" multi-valve GDI/flex-fuel engines and high-speed turbo diesels, lighter sound insulation, foam-core honeycomb sandwich aluminum structures, composite body parts and lighter accessories can help beat the battle of the bulge. Cutting back on the styling trends toward "dubs" and even "donks" (huge, heavy wheels of 20+ inches in diameter) in favor of sensible wheels and tires chosen for maximum roadholding would also be helpful.

But, according to Linday Chappell and Phillip Nussel of Automotive News, "the message from automakers is clear: Consumers won't have to give up size, comfort or horsepower."

The big questions are: (1) whether we can afford to "have it all," (2) whether automakers can figure out how to discipline themselves to bring "it" to us, and (3) whether the U.S. government will leave everyone alone long enough for a reasonable attempt at solving the weight problem through market forces and voluntary innovation to occur.

Or is an unwelcome reprise of the 1970s automotive "dark ages" just around the corner?