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| © Haymarket 2017 Range Rover Velar as imagined by Autocar |
The Range Rover Velar will soon be unveiled as the most
radical-looking Range Rover in history: a mid-sized SUV-coupé designed
to lay down the toughest challenge yet to Porsche’s all-conquering Macan
and rivals such as the BMW X6 and Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupé.
The
new model, which imaginatively revives the Velar name used on original
secret Range Rover prototypes in the late 1960s, is designed to plug the
price gap between the £40,000 Evoque and the £80,000 Range Rover Sport.
Due
for official launch at the Geneva motor show in three weeks’ time, the
Velar (whose name means ‘veil’ or ‘cover’ in Italian) will be built
alongside the Range Rover Sport and Jaguar F-Pace in the ultra-modern
aluminium body and assembly plant in Solihull, West Midlands. JLR
insiders are confident that rising demand will drive Land Rover vehicle
production to new record levels.
Initially dubbed ‘Evoque XL’, the
new five-seater is understood to be most closely related under the skin
to the Jaguar F-Pace, with which it shares JLR’s IQ platform. It will
be powered by a range of north-south engines rather than the transverse
units used in the Halewood-manufactured Evoque. The F-Pace relationship
suggests that the Velar will be a little longer (and probably roomier)
than the Macan. Every version of the new model will be four-wheel drive.
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| © Haymarket 2017 Range Rover Velar as imagined by Autocar |
The Velar’s generous ground clearance and short front and rear
overhangs suggest it will be a capable performer off road. But like the
F-Pace, it won’t have the separate low-range gear set featured on more
expensive, more specialist Land Rovers and Range Rovers. Despite that,
the car will be positioned at the centre of the ‘lifestyle vehicle’
market, with a greater focus on urban use than off-road performance.
Given
the runaway success of the Evoque, which has been instrumental in
growing Land Rover’s global sales from 348,388 units in 2013 to 427,122
last year, the company expects demand from customers moving up the range
from the Evoque to swell total volume well beyond 500,000 units a year.
One
major point of difference between the Velar and its German rivals is
likely to be the interior. Land Rover design boss Gerry McGovern’s team
has a track record of designing increasingly high-quality cabins, while
simplifying the control and switch layouts, whereas Porsche has a more
comprehensive, aircraft-like approach.
The Velar’s interior will
progress further in areas where McGovern believes his cars already have
an edge. The Velar will be powered by JLR’s extensive array of
four-cylinder and six-cylinder engines, both diesel and petrol. The
four-pot units will be from the established Ingenium range, built at
JLR’s recently expanded Wolverhampton engine production facility, about
30 miles north-west of Solihull.
JLR will launch the Velar with
the Ford-sourced V6s currently used throughout its range but will
replace them during the model’s life with own-design Ingenium in-line
six-cylinder petrol and diesel units. These 3.0-litre engines are
modular versions of the 2.0-litre four-cylinder Ingenium units with two
extra cylinders.
Although it is possible the Velar could use the
electric powertrain JLR is developing for its upcoming Jaguar I-Pace
SUV, it is more likely to feature a hybrid version. Offering a hybrid,
especially a plug-in, would cater for buyers who live in the megacities
of Europe, Asia and the US, which are getting ever closer to specifying
zeroemissions vehicles for their most congested areas.
JLR already
has a hybrid powertrain in the range, used in the 340bhp 3.0 SDV6 HEV
Range Rover Sport, but the Velar is more likely to use a newly developed
plug-in system based on the 295bhp four-cylinder Ingenium petrol
engine. The company is also building its own hybrid electric motor,
called the Electric Drive Module, expected to offer a real-world range
of between 20 and 30 miles on battery power and to develop 201bhp and
332lb ft of torque, outputs well above those of the 113bhp electric
motor used in the BMW X5 xDrive40e.
A range-topping
highperformance variant could offer outstanding pace, particularly if
Land Rover chooses to install its most powerful 542bhp supercharged
5.0-litre V8 engine in the Velar. The aluminium-bodied vehicle could
weigh as little as 1800kg. If that target is achieved, it would give the
Velar a significant advantage over the BMW X6 and Mercedes GLE Coupé. A
V8- equipped Velar could be priced at around £90,000.
The same V8
engine is also earmarked for a planned F-Pace SVR, under development at
JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations division at Oxford Road, near
Coventry.
The new Velar reinforces the ‘Luxury’ pillar of Land
Rover’s three-pronged vehicle strategy, along with the other models
wearing Range Rover badges. It stands alongside a ‘Leisure’ pillar that
includes the Discovery and Discovery Sport and a ‘Dual-purpose’ pillar
that will remain dormant until the much-anticipated new Land Rover
Defender arrives in 2019.
With the advent of the Velar, there
will be four models in the Luxury pillar, two in Leisure and none in
Dualpurpose — which rather lays bare JLR bosses’ view that fulfilling
the market’s thirst for plush, upmarket SUVs and crossovers is the
priority, before the company turns its attention to more utilitarian
vehicles such as the Defender.
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