Eric Wallbank, head of automotive at Ernst & Young, said he believed yesterday's acquisition was unlikely to change the way the retail networks would go about their everyday business.

“Tata's management style seems to be to let the companies it acquires run themselves,” said Wallbank.

“You could almost infer that there will be very little change in what the dealers will see in the short term.”

Wallbank said one point of uncertainty that could impact upon retail sales was the potential reaction of consumers to the brands' change of hands to an Indian manufacturer.

He said one thing in Tata's favour was that the brand name was already known in Britain.

“Tata owns a lot of UK companies, so that name is already reasonably well-known,” he said.

Wallbank added that Land Rover was the more secure acquisition of the two brands and that Jaguar would potentially require more attention.

“Jaguar's been believed to be making a loss for some time now, it therefore has more of a platform in terms of an upside in this deal,” he said.