Land Rover and Jaguar, owned by the India-based Tata conglomerate but run out of England, may yet become a success story. We’ll know for certain in the next 12-18 months.
For Land Rover, says new Jaguar Land Rover Canada president Lindsay Duffield, the future is wrapped up in whatever success comes with the 2012 Range Rover Evoque. This compact crossover will hit showrooms next fall in both five-door and three-door versions, most likely starting in the mid-$40,000s.
Land Rover unwrapped the whole Evoque story last month at the Los Angeles auto show. Duffield and all the other Rover types were there, insisting the five-door will add extra practicality and greater family appeal to the Evoque, while the three-door version is something of a city runabout. The Evoque will be the brand’s smallest, lightest and most fuel-efficient model and is as far away from the iconic Defender SUV as anything possible could be.
Consider: the five-door Evoque will be sold in a front-wheel-drive version, though the Rover brain trust insists over and over that the four-wheel-drive version of this car-based crossover will have better off-road capabilities than rival compact SUVs such as the BMW X1. Engines? A new 240-hp, 2.0-litre gasoline unit with direct-fuel injection is the showcase powerplant. Land Rover will offer two 2.2-litre turbo-diesels, with 190 hp or 150 hp, though chances are neither will come to Canada.
Then there’s Jaguar. The sales volumes in Canada remain, well, sad. Through the end of November sales were down 3.2 per cent, with a measly 723 Jags sold during the first 11 months of 2010. But there is hope for the future in the stunning Jaguar C-X75 concept, a 780-hp, we-might-build-it-if-demand-is-there turbojet-powered hybrid. Dripping with clever technology, Jaguar’s electric super-car concept exists to tease and to celebrate 75 years of the Leaper and the Growler.
Jaguar is also looking at a smaller sports car of some sort and everyone drawing a paycheque wants to build one at the company. The problem is, would a little Jag roadster sell at a profit, given the company’s high cost structure? Not likely. And Jaguar can’t afford missteps and mistakes.
But the fact we’re even talking about a future for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is a miracle in itself. Many expected both brands to expire with the great 2008-2009 recession once Ford had unloaded them both to Tata Motors Ltd. in 2008. The deal netted Ford $1.7-billion (U.S.) – about one-third of what the American car company originally paid for the two money-losing British brands. Even at those fire-sale prices, Tata looked to have been fleeced.
Ford sank billions in to Jag and Land Rover, yet never could make a real profit. Under Tata, the JLR leadership is now dominated by Germans with BMW-like backgrounds. They have cut costs, streamlined the business and now the British unit is turning in an operating profit.
“We’re one company, two brands,” and that works, says Duffield, before adding, “Believe me, the adrenalin is pumping. We had to survive the (economic) meltdown (of 2008) and extricate ourselves from Ford. We’ve down that. Now we can look ahead.”
So growth is on the agenda, including and perhaps especially in Canada.
“We should do 5,000 (combined) a year and we’ll get there,” Duffield says, insisting that this small business in Canada is profitable and poised for growth.
For Duffield, whose last full-time auto assignment was running BMW’s business in Canada, 5,000 in sales is peanuts. BMW Canada will sell close to 30,000 BMW and Mini brand vehicles this year. Jaguar will do maybe 800 cars this year, Land Rover perhaps 2,500 or 2,600. It’s a long way for JLR to go from, say, 3,500 combined today, to 5,000-plus in annual sales.
