Ray Massey's column

It's not only the cars which were hot at the Detroit Motor Show - the gossip was, too.

21st January 2007

Each year the Motown mischief-makers are hard at work discussing who's up, who's down and who's stabbing who in the back. You trade tales and find out what's really going on - behind the ever-smiling polished veneer of motor industry spin. And if vehicles ran on gossip rather than gasoline, the world's motor giants would this year be unveiling the first 1,000mpg supercar.


	You trade tales and find out what's really going on - behind the ever-smiling polished veneer of motor industry spin.

Away from the spotlight, admittedly over the odd lemon sherbet, the most frequently heard phrase you'll hear is: "You haven't heard this from me, but..." I can't actually reveal some of the information I heard to you here for legal reasons, but I can let you in on a candid chat I had with Alan Mulally, Ford's president and chief executive, which got the rumour mill churning. This conversation took place when we were literally pressed together in a media scrum. As someone to whom I had not even, at that stage, been introduced, it was a real up close and personal moment. But I grabbed my unexpected few seconds of intimate proximity to the new man to ask the obvious question. Was he going to sell off Britain's legendary Jaguar - and what would it take to persuade him not to?

"There are no plans to sell Jaguar at this time," he replied. Examine the words carefully. No plans "at this time". I challenged him that he sounded slightly non-committal to any long-term support for the Coventry firm. But he stuck to his script. "We really like the progress Jaguar is making both on the product side and on its quality and productivity," he added.

As the day wore on, my new and very personable best friend, clearly with a sense of humour, lost no opportunity to shout - and yes, I do mean shout - across the show hall to me: "Not selling Jaguar!" That is why the stunning new XF sports saloon - the replacement for the next-generation S-Type - is crucial to Jaguar. It buys the company time.

Mr Mulally arrived on the scene last September after Bill Ford bailed out of the top job at the troubled motor giant to make way for the high-flier from aircraft maker Boeing. Mr Ford, great grandson of company founder Henry, remains chairman. Mr Mulally has already put a 'For Sale' sign outside Aston Martin and is drawing up a shortlist of bidders. One possible name in the frame - according to the Detroit grapevine - is former global Ford boss Jac Nasser. Nicknamed 'Jac the Knife' by the gossips, he's a feisty, no-nonsense Australian who now heads venture capital firm One Equity. Other people, who wouldn't go on record, say he's backed out of a potential Aston takeover, while another, more juicy rumour is he's "on a promise" for a bigger deal. Could that be Jaguar?

But the tattle surrounding the issue doesn't end there. Some 'insiders' say the Ford family does not want Mr Nasser anywhere near Aston Martin, for fear of the gloating this might engender. During an earlier crisis a few years ago, before he was ousted from the blue oval hot-seat, Mr Nasser had a loud falling out with Bill Ford Jnr late one night in his office. Now James Packer, son of media tycoon Kerry Packer, has been mentioned in connection with Aston Martin. He's an Aussie, too. Could he be a front for Jac Nasser? That's the view of some people here in Detroit. All of this is pure speculation, of course, a bit like some concept cars, with not a shred of proof to back any of it up. True or not, this bit of gossip created more CO2 emissions than a fleet of Chelsea Tractors...

Ray Massey, motoring editor for the Daily Mail