Ford's Sporty New Number

Cash starved and struggling, Britain's Jaguar PLC has decided to take the course favored by many an aristocrat facing hard times: marrying into money. Last week, three days after Japanese investors bought a majority interest in Rockefeller Center, the 67-year-old maker of sleek, purring luxury sports cars and sedans agreed to be taken over by America's Ford Motor for $2.5 billion. The deal is likely to win approval from the required 75% of Jaguar's stockholders.

Ford, flush with profits after four prosperous years, will acquire instant . access to the market for ultra-luxurious driving machines. Automotive experts expect Jaguar to use the cash infusion to develop new, more competitively priced models.

As Britain's last major independent producer of luxury cars, Jaguar had fought hard to go it alone. The company earned $45 million last year but lost $1.8 million during the first six months of 1989, largely because of slumping U.S. sales. Jaguar tried to fend off Ford's advances by offering General Motors a 30% stake in the British firm. But last week the British government opened the way for Ford by waiving London's legislative right to veto any takeover of Jaguar before 1991. Ford put its offer on the table the next morning. GM officials decided the price was too high and withdrew.

Ford has promised Jaguar's officials a large degree of freedom in running the company. Even so, John Lawson, a London-based analyst for Nomura Research Institute, predicts that Ford will have to invest an additional $1.5 billion to improve Jaguar's production, which would bring the total investment to $4 billion. "That is going to be very hard for Ford to recover in the marketplace," Lawson warns. But then, status symbols seldom come cheap.