Land Rover’s Solihull plant will produce all-aluminum 3 Series fighters for Jaguar, starting in 2015
The Ford Mondeo based X-Type failed to get Jaguar a foothold in the segment that is usually defined by the BMW 3 Series and the cars that compete with the 3. Now the Financial Times has reported that Jaguar will be launching an entire line of entry level luxury vehicles for that critical segment and that the new cars, said to be ready for sale about two years from now, will benefit from Jaguar’s expertise with lightweight aluminum structures.
Jaguar made it’s first all-aluminum car about a decade ago. The current XJ sedan and new F Type sports car both have aluminum structures. The new model range will include a sedan, a station wagon and a crossover. That crossover is seen as a way of leveraging Land Rover’s own expertise with SUVs and current success with its smaller Evoque and Freelander models. While Jaguar Land Rover is doing well overall, with sales up 14% over last year, to 210,190 in the first half of 2013, only one in five JLR cars sold were from the Jaguar brand. JLR’s owner, Tata, wants to increase overall sales and for Jaguar to have a larger share those sales, and will apparently also leverage Land Rover production facilities as the new, smaller Jaguars will be assembled at Land Rover’s Solihull plant in central England. Reuters reports that the new range of small Jaguars will be introduced at the Frankfurt auto show in September.
JLR is the only bright spot in Tat’s portfolio. Anything they can do to leverage that success will only pay more dividends in the future.
Jaguar needed this back when the XF launched. They’re a little late to the party. Also, before the X-Type bashing comes in, I had a Sport model with the manual trans and it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was made out to be.
I’ve driven a few, would like to get hold of a 2.5 5-speed for myself, and they’re very enjoyable cars. What killed them was the use of the Mondeo pan being mis-translated into “rebadged Mondeo”. And the stigma never went away, nor was it allowed to.
The 3.0 5MT is the one to get. The transfer case on the earlier models was fragile, I replaced two t-cases unfortunately, but man did it handle well and was pretty quick to boot.
And for what it’s worth, that 3.0L is one of the best sounding V6 engines of its day.
And another wannabe contender in the China Luxury Car Gold Rush steps up its effort. (The tipoff is the crossover… I think even my wife’s cat is developing a luxury compact crossover for the Chinese market… certainly everyone else seems to be.)
+1
JLR already has a compact luxury crossover in the Range Rover Evoque. What else do they need?
A Jag-branded version that is even more CUV than SUV. Think X3.
This article makes no mention of China. Even if it did, what exactly is wrong with that? It seems to me (perhaps I misunderstand) that you view that in a very negative light.
JLR’s current strong global sales are at least in part driven by China.
So it’s perfectly logical that they would target that market, along with other brands and other markets they sell well in, with products those markets are buying into. Last time I checked this was pretty normal business practice.
3-series competitor can’t come too soon. There is a lot of goodwill towards JLR in the UK at the moment, and if this car is even vaguely competitive in the market, plenty of people will happily trade in their Audi or BMW for one.
The compact luxury crossover sounds good, but I think it will steal more sales from the Evoque than from the X1 or X3.
No brainer of the day #2. This is exactly what Jag needed to do if they want to stick around. The new XJ cut corners on its all-aluminum structure which was a step backwards.
This is good news, as JLR seems to be one of the few remaining mainstream brands with character. I’m exited to see what the can come up with.
Interesting to see how Jaguar and Land Rover are expanding under the ownership of TATA, despite the European turn down.
These are smart moves. The market for smaller premium vehicles is growing by leaps and bounds, and Jaguar needs to be part of it.
The most beloved vintage Jaguar sedan isn’t one of the large ones, but rather the relatively compact for it’s time Mark II. A nice Mark II is worth many times what a similar vintage Mark X will bring, and yet the Mark X was the premium priced vehicle of the two when new.
Jaguar and Land Rover is one of the most successful land rover in the city.I’m kinda excited to see their new latest Rover v8 parts fashion of car in the near future.
Note to Al and Billy. Show one of these to the design team at Lincoln Motor Company. Build an Americanized version of one these. Then Lincoln will really be on the comeback.