Jaguar's French sales in overdrive

SELLING luxury cars in a country whose national motto includes the words fraternity and equality is no easy task. 'The biggest brake on our sales is the reluctance of people to be seen driving a car that might make workmates or customers think they are showing off,' said Marc Luini, managing director of Jaguar France.

'It is a very French reflex - quite unlike the behaviour of Italians, say, for whom the only hesitation is whether they can afford it.'

Nonetheless, thanks to new models and some ingenious marketing, Luini and his team have increased Jaguar's French sales almost threefold in the past four years, to 2,350 in 2001. And the new two litre S type, which at e30,000 (£19,464) costs no more than a home-grown Renault Laguna, has turbocharged sales since its introduction in March, pushing April sales ahead by 73% year on year.

Thanks to improved quality, reliability, and the extension of the model range since being taken over by Ford, Jaguar has come a long way since the late 1980s, when it sold only 200 cars a year in France. With 4,000 sales expected this year, and 6,000 to 7,000 targeted within three years, Jaguar is taking on more concessionaires and developing common service points with Ford's other luxury European brands, Land-Rover, Aston Martin and Volvo, to service all four marques.

And to overcome the problem of having only 35 dealers, Luini has set up a rolling roadshow, comprising a car transporter and a mobile showroom, which gives prosperous provincials a chance to try a marque that retains the cachet of successive Le Mans victories.

For as the sales figures show, French car buyers are gradually shedding their socialist inhibitions - and their distrust of Albion's perfidious workmanship. 'Our surveys show that customers buy Jaguars for their style, refinement and performance - and because they are British,' Luini said.