LONDON -- Inspector Morse tooled around Oxford in a Mark II. James Bond's archenemy, Zao, drove an XKR roadster, with an optional Gatling gun mounted behind the seats. When former British Prime Minister Tony Blair pulled out of 10 Downing Street for the last time last year, it was -- how else? -- in the back seat of a Jaguar.

There have been Lotuses and Triumphs, Aston Martins and MGs, but no vehicle has epitomized the once-legendary British motor industry like that most English of cars, the powerful, sultry Jaguar.

Except that, for the better part of 18 years, Jaguar has been owned by Ford Motor Co. of Detroit. And that the brand is about to be acquired by another vestige of Britain's long-ago colonies.

India's Tata Group, in fact, wants to take off Ford's hands not only Jaguar but Land Rover, the British matron of sport utility vehicles in which Queen Elizabeth II has been known to flog through the gardens behind Windsor Castle.

The importance of one of India's muscular conglomerates riding to the rescue of British legends -- and paying as much as $2 billion to do so -- isn't lost on either side of the ex-empire.

The Tata deal, which could be sealed next week, "has made us all proud," said Debashis Chakraborty, a government official in Kolkata, the onetime capital of the British Raj.

Neither Indians nor Brits have failed to appreciate the historical ironies involved. In Britain, though, the reaction has been more mixed, with optimism that Tata Chief Executive Ratan Tata will be able to help restore the brand to its former glory spiked with faint regret that it took an Indian giant to do the job.

"I think Sir William Lyons would be turning in his grave, quite frankly," said Barrie Birkin, a longtime Jaguar owner from Matlock, in the Derbyshire Dales, referring to the legendary co-founder of the company who presided over the marque's preeminence in world motor sports and luxury car design through 1972.

"I can't believe it, to tell you the truth," Birkin said. "But Tata's a guy whose made billions, and he must have some ideas to turn it around."

It probably helps the British attitude that Tata is no stranger to preserving British brands. The company owns Britain's biggest steel firm, Corus, which includes the former British Steel, as well as Tetley Tea, which British observers note with some satisfaction was not merged into Tata Tea, the largest tea manufacturer in India.

"The media like to call it the empire striking back. But I think there's more to it than that. There's a lot of evidence in international business research that companies will go to countries that are close to their own countries, close being defined broadly either in cultural terms or historical terms," said Ravi Ramamurti, director of the Center for Emerging Markets at Northeastern University.

Ford loses fans

In 1989, most British car enthusiasts saw Ford's purchase of Jaguar as a lifesaver that averted the brand's near-certain extinction under British ownership. The latest top-end models executed under Ford management have been widely celebrated: The new XF, with its 2.7-liter, V6 twin-turbo diesel, was named Car of the Year 2008 in Britain's What Car? awards.

The critical successes came at the tail end of years of lackluster financial performance and Ford's ill-fated experiment with its X-type introductory-level luxury car -- an endeavor that produced the unlikely specter of a Jaguar station wagon. It was celebrated by reviewers as a "city-friendly grocery-getter" or, more predominantly, the "dog's breakfast."

Peter Cooke, KPMG professor of automotive management at the University of Buckingham, said that Ford "damaged the brand."

"This is being dreadfully English and cynical, but a Jaguar is an aspirational product by definition. In the U.K. market, you don't want to see your hairdresser driving a Jaguar," he said.

Land Rover prospered under Ford, with worldwide sales rising 18% last year as Jaguar's shrank by a similar proportion, but cash-hungry Ford wants to sell both. The automaker lost $2.67 billion last year and $12.6 billion in 2006, and recently unloaded Aston Martin, another premier British brand, to a Kuwaiti-funded investor group for $848 million, keeping a $77-million stake.

Under the complex ownership-sharing agreements being hashed out with Tata, Ford is expected to continue supplying engines for Jaguars -- a provision that guarantees, over the next few years at least, not only the jobs of 16,500 workers at Ford plants but as many as 40,000 others in the companies that provide components.

More classically British

Tata would maintain British management teams and three existing production plants in Birmingham and Liverpool, as well as two engineering and design studios.