Like a lemming following Jeep off a cliff, Land Rover is looking to expand its image eroding soft-roader lineup. In a thinly-veiled effort to generate buzz prior to an official announcement, the legendary British automaker leaked photos of the Land Rover LRX concept to Auto Motor und Sport and other European automobile sites. Billed as a crossover coupe, the exterior’s cutting Edge design (geddit?) attempts to put a modern face on an historic marque. Unfortunately, the look is about as consistent with Land Rover’s off-road mystique as Jeep's Patriot games are for that storied off-road marque. But on the positive side, a real world LRX would help lower the brand's egregious not to say potentially fatal fleet fuel economy averages. And it's nice to see a parting shot ahead Ford's corporate defenestration. And the seats are swathed in the same sumptuous leather that blesses my favorite reading chair. Ummmmm, chocolate.
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At least Jeep still offers the brand-defining no-compromises Wrangler and it happens to be selling rather well. Land Rover is out of excuses. They only sold their fabled Defender series in America in limited numbers at inflated prices before they were forced to retreat back across the Atlantic due to airbag legislation in the late 90’s. The Discovery and Range Rover were still ‘real’ 4×4’s at the time, but the future was clear as these models began to incorporate more and more standard luxury features. Finally the bottom (literally) fell out when the Discovery became the LR3 and there was not a Land Rover solid axle to be found imported to the states. The Defender today is still very much a Defender of yore and thus may not be sold in the states. Those that made it over here are now over 10 years old and priced at about 2 times the price of an average new Jeep Wrangler. Jeep has evolved while still keeping its core. Land Rover sold its values for the profits found in the CUV wave. This may work for a while, but as we’re seeing now, there is a wide gap with high approach and departure angles between the brand’s image and the reality of its products. The current generations of Rovers is woefully unprepared to cross that gap.
Land Rover is slowly careening into irrelevance in the market where it should be gaining ground (America).
So be it. All of the vehicles offer some sort of inherent contradiction with respect to the brand. Luxury offroading. Offroading without axles. Offroading without reliability.
People who want to sacrifice some prowess for comfort will by a Lexus GX. People for whom comfort is no issue are buying Wranglers.
Doesn’t LR already offer a CUV?
Maybe Saab should sue?
http://archive.cardesignnews.com/autoshows/2001/frankfurt/highlights/images/saab-9×371.jpg
Let’s hope TATA motors understands the Land Rover legend better than the current crop of managers.
Given that stock LR3s handily outperform most Disco’s offroad, I’m not sure how they are diluting their brand… Unless the brand purpose is to remain with yesteryear’s tech… I’m not aware a large NA need for heavy duty offroading, but a live axle is still available in Europe – and on the most base of LR3s. I’ll grant that the LR2/Freelander is a bit of a comprimise – it still works better off-road then 99% of the vehicles available (having pulled a Wrangler with an older Freelander! Yeah, sure, the Wrangler had on road tires, but still! ;) ). Lack of low-range gear does kill serious mud and climbing experiences, but Freelanders typically outperformed Discos in the snow (based on personal experience/shared stories of owners /w _both_ vehicles)!
Remember LR is also coming out of their best sales year, but they do have to have an eye for the future (unlike some other big 2.8 companies???), and this vehicle might provide them with the tools they need to keep afloat…
However, at the end of the day, I can’t say I’m feeling this concept – the front end takes queues from the Freelander/LR2, but is pretty Edgy…
Kinda cool looking except for that huge blunt bumper up front. But I’m probably not a good person to ask since I hate giant SUV’s and the closer it look like a car the better. What is with all the wedge shaped windows these days, people don’t look back anymore. I guess the cars park themselves so who needs rear visibility.
A luxury automaker that only builds SUVs
(a maker of vehicles made popular by a passing fad)
A luxury automaker that only builds SUVs
(a maker of oversized, overweight vehicles that most owners have no justification for owning)
A luxury automaker that only builds SUVs
(a maker of vehicled that fall into a class with limited appeal)
A luxury automaker that only builds SUVs
(a maker of a product that 99% of the buyers will never use as intended)
Honestly looking at a RR is like looking a model in a evening dress with a pair of timberland boots on her feet. It is a rather oximoronic vehicle when you get down to it. The paint and trim make it totally unsuitable to do the job it is designed to do. The cream colored leather interiors make it even a qustionable action to even open the door on a dusty dirty road.
It does not take much thought to come to the conclusion that concept of Land Rover (as it is strictly sold in the USA) is well, STUPID! This what happens when a bunch of fools that believe they would sell millions of BOF SUVs forever buy a foreign brand for its “Prestige” value.
I laugh when I see people trying to define a brand iimage that is based on the BS fantansies of the costumers. There really is noting about the LR image to dilute. With the exceptions of a few ranting individuals no one cares if LR makes more CUV platformed vehicles.
Why does “Cimarron” keep popping into my head?
To me this is more like a contemporary version of the Range Stormer concept, design wise its good looking, contemporary, sporty and i’d expect to see a Range Rover badge on this in the near future. I guess SUV manufacturers can’t win, if they try to develop smaller niche led vehicles they get swamped with criticism. This looks like the dogs bollox, and if it gets to market will sell like a storm. As for saying that Land Rover is losing its touch of heritage, i say look again. Disco created a new niche segment for SUV’s, they have continued to enhance this by making the brands premium but capable. LR3’s and Range Rovers are more than able of holding their own offroad, its part of the brand bible when creating these vehicles. I’d have one.
Samir Syed :
December 14th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Land Rover is slowly careening into irrelevance in the market where it should be gaining ground (America).
So be it. All of the vehicles offer some sort of inherent contradiction with respect to the brand.
Samir – respectfully (of course) what ARE you talking about? This is the same Land Rover you are referring to that is about to post record sales in the US, record global sales in 2007 (following record sales in 2006, 2005 and 2004) and record profit in 2007. Doesn’t sound too irrelevant to me!
You have falled in to the age old trap that many of your colleagues do, and judged success by US-only metrics. Land Rover is a true global brand (unlike the irrelevance that Jeep is). They have huge waiting lists for vehicles in Russia, China and many other markets and this new concept car will only further broaden their appeal.
To suggest otherwise is to fly in the face of fact.
BTW – Land Rover did not ‘leak’ the photos to AMS – AMS chose to ignore the embargo and print images they had been given in confidence – you can’t trust the Germans!
Well, given that the “new” Rover is the spitting image of Saab’s 9x concept vehicle from 2001, I don’t really think AMS should worry to much about breaking any embargo.
http://archive.cardesignnews.com/autoshows/2001/frankfurt/highlights/images/saab-9×371.jpg
When such a small fraction of SUVs ever go off road I don’t understand why anyone would get upset about a new vehicle not having a solid rear axle.
5%-10% of the US SUV market MIGHT be for serious off road use. Building the other 90% of the vehicles to do well at that rare use would be dumb. Sure, a few companies can make some money building niche vehicles for the serious 4X4 crowd, but it is irrelevant to the way the vast majority of these vehicles are used in North America.