Land Rover picks up two awards from Auto Express; Freelander wins Best Compact SUV, Discovery wins Best Premium SUV

The Freelander 2 was up against the VW Tiguan, Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4 and Ford Kuga in the highly regarded, and probably most important for sales, Best Compact SUV class. The Discovery 3 trounced the BMW X5, Audi Q7 and Mercedes M-Class for Best Premium SUV.

Auto Express road test editor, Chris Thorp, said: “Here is the proof that when it comes to building compact sports utility vehicles, Land Rover cannot be matched. Not only is the Freelander 2 as capable on the road as it is off it, the upmarket 4×4 is as refined as some of the best limousines. Generously equipped and tastefully appointed, the car offers an unrivalled blend of versatility and drivability.”

Thorp continued: “The Discovery 3 is the most distinctively styled and best loved premium off-roader money can buy. The seven seat interior is not just huge, but hugely adjustable. Its air suspension and terrain response allow drivers to reach all but the most inaccessible locations. As at home on the M25, as it is in the Serengeti Desert, no other car offers such wide ranging ability.”

This article was taken from: Land Rover Owner International

Land Rover is putting direct and digital marketing at the heart of a campaign to promote the Range Rover Sport.

The work, created by Wunderman, focuses on the exhilaration of driving a sports vehicle and ties up with an ongoing TV campaign for the range, in which the brand compares the anticipation felt before a thrilling experience to that experienced before taking the wheel of the Range Rover Sport.

Using both direct and digital media, the campaign seeks to target male drivers with significant disposable income. The direct element involves the use of heat-sensitive paper to demonstrate the effect of the Range Rover Sport on the ‘red-blooded’ recipient.

The online element of the campaign involves targeted emails encouraging consumers to book test drives. Land Rover has also developed a dedicated microsite containing information about the marque, as well as offering opportunities to watch the Range Rover Sport in action.

Visitors to the site have access to driving footage shot in Slovenia and the vehicle’s overall performance statistics. The experience films demonstrate the Range Rover Sport’s all-terrain capabilities and show its luxury interior.

A series of digital ads, created by Wunderman and RKCR/Y&R, will also be rolled out as part of the integrated campaign.

Land Rover is also running a TV campaign, created by RKCR/Y&R, for its Disco-very 3 range, which is supported by a dedicated website.

This article was taken from: Brand Republic

Land Rover celebrates six decades of SUVs.

The first Land Rover was not simply inspired by a Jeep, it was a Jeep, underneath.

This was in 1947, and there were plenty of old Army Jeeps in England. At that time, Maurice Wilks, whose day job was engineering director of Rover, had a farm in Wales. On his farm he had a Jeep (e-i-e-i-o). But his Jeep eventually wore out to the point that he needed a replacement. He was surprised to find there was no replacement other than another surplus Army Jeep. Being a Rover man, he felt there should be something made right there in good old Britain.

At the same time he was looking for a replacement Jeep, he and his brother Spencer, who was managing director of Rover (what a gene pool!), were trying to figure out what the company could build with the extremely limited resources available. The biggest problem with building cars in postwar England was that there wasn’t any steel with which to build them. There was plenty of leftover aluminum, though, in the form of airplanes no one needed anymore.

The two circumstances came together like peanut butter and chocolate in a Reese’s cup. Jealously eyeing the success of the Standard Motor Company in Coventry, which was cranking out as many Ferguson tractors as it could, the Wilkses decided to build . . . a farm implement.

Maurice dispatched a man posthaste to an automotive salvage yard–a.k.a., a dump–in the Cotswolds to buy two Army surplus Willys Jeeps. These and the aging Welsh Willys were the basis for the first Land Rover prototypes. Wilks put 1.4-liter Rover engines in the prototypes that sent a ground-pounding 48 hp to both front and rear axles. The first units had the steering wheel and driver’s seat in the middle, like a tractor, with power takeoffs all over, the idea being that not only would farmers like them, they could be exported to left- and right-hand-drive markets cheaply!

To get around the lack of steel for the body, Wilks used an aluminum-magnesium alloy called Birmabright. Not only was the material in plentiful supply, but it didn’t rust. He showed this new “Land Rover” prototype to the world on April 30, 1948, at the Amsterdam Motor Show.

The world liked it.

How we got from a vehicle made for farmers to a vehicle sought after by divorced, 50-something real estate agents with bottle-blonde hair, pointy shoes and killer abs is a long story, but we have time.

Since everyone loved the prototype from the Amsterdam show, Rover built it, the production units getting big-block, 1.6-liter fours, 80-inch wheelbases and a sticker price the equivalent of $880. (The center driving position was axed on production models.) It was called the Series I, and it stayed in production almost unchanged for 10 years.

There were other models after that. The Series II, the one you saw in all those Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom TV shows shot in Africa, came out in 1958. It had a 2.3-liter engine but only a mild facelift. The Series IIA of 1961 was another modest facelift, offering, by the late ’60s, a 2.6-liter straight-six. A commercial variant, the Forward-Control, came out in 1962.

But all those still were a long way from the luxury mack-daddy roller we now think of as Land Rover. There really was nothing revolutionary out of the Solihull factory until the 1970 Range Rover debuted. That model changed the brand forever, ushering in the Rovers, both Land and Range, that we think of today.

In the interim, Land Rover survived ownership changes from Rover to British Leyland to the British government; the temporary withdrawal from the U.S. market when no one could figure out new emission standards over here, and all kinds of company reorganizations such as Austin Morris, Jaguar-Rover-Triumph and Land Rover, British Aerospace was in there somewhere, none of which we will go into here. Suffice it to say that the ’70s were a mess, as you may remember. By 1976, Land Rover had produced its one-millionth SUV and was succeeding in spite of itself and its government saviors.

Credit for the modern, fashion-statement status Land Rover now enjoys should go to marketing genius Roger Ball, who surveyed the company’s world markets and recommended it go from farm implement-maker to fashionista, especially in the United States. By 1986, Land Rover had figured out both the Department of Transportation and the EPA, and probably NHTSA, and Range Rover North America set up shop in Lanham, Md., with visionary Charlie Hughes at the helm. Every-thing was going to be OK. Hughes, PR guy Bill Baker and a cast of talented marketeers used tools such as Land Rover Centres and the Land Rover Driving Experience to move the company up and out of the farm-vehicle/African bushwhacker category and into luxury-car marketing niches its founders could never have imagined.

BMW’s purchase of Rover Group in 1994, shortly before the introduction of niche models Defender 90 and Defender 110 and after the launch of the smaller Discovery 90 in 1989, ushered in engineering talent never imagined by the Wilks brothers. By the time Ford bought Rover in 2000, Land Rover had a full line of SUVs and was riding the crest of the SUV craze in a time of economic prosperity.

As the 1997 Freelander, the 2004 LR3 and the 2008 LR2 came out, no one noticed–or maybe the marketing was so effective no one cared–that almost any Land Rover JD Power IQS score was well below the industry average. That remains perhaps part of the reason why, with the sputtering economy and high gas prices, Land Rover in America took a harder hit in the SUV downturn than most–sales were down 47 percent for June 2008 versus June 2007. It’s another critical time for the marque with a history of critical times. How much will new owner Tata be able to do about that? Does the Indian car industry have the same standards as North America and Europe? We shall see. But the Wilks brothers would be astounded by how far their little tractor has come in 60 years.

This article was takem from: AutoWeek

Land Rover is currently testing diesel-electric hybrids known as ERAD (Electric Rear Axle Drive). These prototypes based on the Freelander use technology as previewed in the LRX concept car, also on show at the British Motor Show this week.

The ERAD system can cut fuel consumption by up to 30% in real-life driving environments, without compromising off-road four-wheel-drive abilities.

It allows for operation in both fully-electric and diesel-powered modes, or a combination of both. The rear-axle drive can also divert electric power to the front wheels via a propshaft; a Haldex unit connects and de-couples the rear axle.

The prototypes also feature a crankshaft-integrated starter-generator (CISG), an electric unit mounted within the dual-clutch transmission. This supplements torque, and aids start-up of the diesel engine. It collects energy otherwise lost under braking, storing it in the boot-mounted lithium-ion battery pack, and also controls a stop-start system to automatically cut the engine when idling. The 288-volt electric motor can give up to 35kW and 25kW of continuous power, and 148lb-ft of torque.

The whole powertrain system works with Land Rover’s multi-mode Terrain Response system, with Eco, Dynamic, Grass/Gravel/Snow, Mund/Ruts and Sand programmes.

In Eco programme, the rear axle only is electrically driven, with the diesel engine deactivated in stop-start traffic.

In Dynamic mode, the diesel engine drives the front wheels, with drive to the rear wheels available when necessary.

For grass, gravel or snow, electric power drives all four wheels for start-up, and for mud and ruts, this can be supplemented by power from the diesel engine, and on sand, the diesel engine is supplemented by the electric drive for high power to both axles.

The diesel ERAD Hybrid is just one of Land Rover’s upcoming fuel-saving measures, part of its e-Terrain Technologies programme which also includes the development of more lightweight body structures, plug-in hybrids, ‘mild’ flywheel hybrids and reduction of power drawn by electrical systems.

The ERAD system could be applied to a variety of different Land Rover and Range Rover models, as well as used with a variety of different engines.

First, however, some of its elements will be fitted in existing production vehicles: diesel Freelanders will be fitted with the stop-start system from next year, and this will be added to other model-ranges shortly after.

This article was taken from: Channel 4