Ford expects sales at its British off-road brand Land Rover to hold roughly steady this year compared with the 165,163 cars it sold in 2003.

"More or less you will see about the same," Mark Fields, president of Ford's Premier Automotive Group of luxury brands that includes Land Rover, says.

"The issue you need to keep in mind is that we have run out our Discovery vehicle and we are just in the process of launching the replacement for that, so that is one of the mitigating circumstances, but the business I think more or less will end up there or thereabouts."