I had the idea the Aston Project would definatly be going ahead, as Pro Drive have already built the car, and testing was to comence very soon.

The boss man of Aston Martin made a big press announcement about the DB9 and the DBR9 at the Le Mans Classic and stated that Prodrive were building it.

I was told at Farnborough Air show by some guy from BAR that it was built, in pieces, and they were developing it. He promised a factory tour at some point , but i cant find his business card now !

Nordic, where did you get the info about the Chinese buying into Jaguar?. There are plenty of unconfirmed media reports about the Ford rebranding of the team, and also reliable sources hinting that the team will be scrapped completely at the end of this year. To quote from the Daily Telegraph website of 9th Sept......

"Budgets for next year have still not been signed off at the head office of parent company Ford, leading to fears that the renowned British marque may not be on the grid next season.

 
 
Jaguar team principal Tony Purnell has been candid about Ford's position on the company's participation in F1, claiming that unless the cost of competing came down, an exit would be sought. Ford have not reached that point yet but are understood to be prepared to axe the Jaguar livery to accommodate a new title sponsor, or even rebrand the team under the organisation's familiar blue oval logo.

David Pitchforth, Jaguar Racing's managing director, was in meetings with prospective sponsors yesterday in pursuit of the extra funding required to allow the team to compete, in the short term at least, with rival manufacturers at the top end of the F1 grid.

Jaguar arrived in F1 to a great fanfare in 2000 but have struggled to make an impact, finishing no higher than seventh in the constructor's championship, the position they occupy going in to the Italian Grand Prix.

A series of poor appointments both at senior management level and behind the wheel of the car did not help. The appointments of Purnell and Pitchforth two years ago proved a turning point of sorts but without the necessary investment from Ford, the improvements made behind the scenes have gone largely unrecognised.

Pitchforth was not even able to counter the offer that took Mark Webber, the team's highly regarded Australian driver, to Williams for the 2005 season. Even more distressing, with Jaguar's future undecided, he is unable to appoint a replacement.
"

But no mention of the Chinese.

Ford do have a fair bit going on in China currently, one thing being they're making the new Focus replacement there (saving themselves a few billion in the process i imagine). I will see what further info I can tap my contact for!

This is all very interesting to me, on a more general level.  For some years now, I've been watching the general commercial trend in China, and there is no doubt that they want to become major international players in all sorts of areas.  

Their banking systems have been improved dramatically in the last few years, and the general trend in their manufacturing industries to take on western management techniques etc. have been quite impressive.  I've been saying for some time now, that the Chinese will make the Japanese industrial emergence (post WW2) look fairly tame, within the next decade.  Motor racing just seems to fit right in with the general trend.

Watch this space.........................

Good.

Jags belong in sports car racing, where their tradition and heritage lies. No word on any possible return, looks like they won't be in motorsport at all, which is a crying shame. Bad news to about the impending Browns Lane, home of the C, D and E types, but that's the downside of globalisation for you.

Appropos of nowt, my grandad was a Jag dealer and one of my earliest memories was being taken to Browns Lane as a four year old kid and being sat in the cockpit of a D Type, which I think was in the reception area. My brother and myself were give little diecast scale models of the D, which my mother hid from us so that we could treasure them in later life. Unfortunately my brother and myself found them when we were about nine and having prised the car of it's wodden plinth, proceeded to wreck the thing. Doh!! What idiots, one of my biggest regrets in life. But it started my interest in cars, racing and LM, so I suppose it wasn't a total waste of time.