Land Rover LRX To Go Into Production
Land Rover has announced that its LRX concept "cute ute" will be available in showrooms sometime in 2010. Auto Express tells us (over the sounds of retching from the Berkowitz household) that the name "Freelander Sport" is likely to grace the road-oriented, strangely-styled ute. Why would a firm which built its rep for utter capability off-road bring out such a compromised interpretation of its brand vision? It's the ecology, stupid. We're told that both the 2.2-liter diesel and the 3.2-liter V6 will be equipped with stop-start technology as the brand struggles to prepare itself for new EU CO2 average emissions standards which go into effect in 2012. There's even talk of a hybrid powertrain down the road. So, think of this as Landie's answer to Ken Livingstone's crusade against "Chelsea Tractors." Actually, it's more of a "Chelsea Riding Mower."
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Nice! Is it a good idea to dilute the Land Rover brand with CUVs though???
How do they still run the adventure themed commercials while planning to build this? The Landy brand is nearly dead in the US. Unless you identify with cocked caps and heavy gold jewelry you are less and less likely to want a new Landy.
@Pahaska: It's like I've said before. Brand values work...until they don't, then they're useless.
Another vehicle for those wanna be gangsters to put 22's under. Oh jump for joy. My next vehicle will need to be high enough to see over the SUV traffic we have. It's getting scarier every day to drive a car and pray a SUV doesn't hit me!