In what would be a return to its origins, Land Rover looks set to use the Range Rover badge on a luxury two-door – but this time, it will be a coupe. Fans of the original Range Rover will remember its two-door body, but it’s been a long time since a full-sized Range Rover luxury off-roader was available as a two-door.
Land Rover design chief, Gerry McGovern, speaking exclusively to Australian media at the LA Motor Show cryptically suggested journalists ‘write that down’ when making reference to a two-door coupe-style Range Rover, sitting at the upper reaches of the luxury scale.
In what would surely be a high-end, SUV-based two-door coupe, Land Rover would be hoping to attract buyers from super-premium competitor SUVs like Rolls-Royce or Bentley. Indeed, the new two-door would be even more premium than the current flagship, and would build on the platform of the recently-released Range Rover SVAutobiography.
Above: The first Range-Rover prototype was a two-door
“It is a natural progression for Range Rover to become more tailored, more bespoke, refined and luxurious,” McGovern said. In response to whether he wanted to push the Range Rover brand further and more forcibly into what has become known as the super-luxury SUV segment he said “watch this space”.
“All I can say is, that as a business, over the last few years under Tata, we’ve had a look at all the products we could do… I can’t say when, I can’t say what, but there are opportunities,” McGovern said. “We have proved with Range Rover that there are opportunities to offer derivatives of these vehicles, and to offer them in a way to bring something new to the market.”
What makes this kind of blue-sky planning possible is the existence of the SVO (Special Vehicle Operations) division within Jaguar/Land Rover, which operates as a separate business within a business. “SVO helps makes the business case,” McGovern said.
Above: The next Range Rover Evoque might not be offered as a coupe
“SVO is almost self-funded, which means that a limited edition model that pays for itself (but makes profit for JLR) is far easier to create a business case for. The good thing with SVO is it is a self-funding business so there are opportunities within SVO that don’t have to be mainstream and small volumes lend themselves beautifully to that,” McGovern said.
Range Rover already has a two-door in the form of the Evoque, but that might not necessarily make it – in hardtop form at least – to the next model cycle of that smaller vehicle.
“There is probably less market for that (a two-door Evoque) and we already have the cabriolet, so there’s no need,” McGovern said. “But as we go bigger, you can think about a two-door because it becomes more exclusive, which might give you a hint.”
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