BBC News posted an article back in August about a Welsh company, Calsonic Kansei – they were awarded some govnerment financing, which was great news for them, but the part that interested me the most was in the last paragraph:
"This announcement coincides with the news that Calsonic is successful in winning a major new contract with Jaguar Land Rover for the next generation Range Rover platform and will ensure that the work will come to the Llanelli plant which is great news for our employees."
Just reading that makes me wonder how many people out there really know what’s coming to the Range Rover for the 4th generation.
Clearing out some old links I never posted – here’s a press release on the latest 2010 Armoured Range Rover – http://www.defpro.com/news/details/10170/
Not sure how I missed this one for so long – Land Rover launched a new site at:
http://www.interactivelandrover.com
Along with three other social media accounts:
Twitter – Land Rover (interactivelr)
Facebook – Interactive Land Rover
Not too much stuff that isn’t already available, but it puts it all in once place and I guess it’s more accessible to the consumer vs. the traditional media site.
There are some great pictures, that they host with Amazon S3, but looking through them, there are quite a few that just don’t work, not sure if it’s a broken link or just that no one actually uploaded the graphic.
Here we can see one of the new features for the 2010 refresh, the cameras help the driver to line up with their trailer, saving a lot of back and forth – and in addition, it will help to predict where the trailer will go when reversing, helping the driving maneuver.
Last month, the LRX mule was caught on the Nurburgring and you can see they are hiding something in with that different rear of the vehicle.
I’m hoping they keep a lot of the specifics they showed on the picture dated September 24th, with the Range Rover branding. And I wonder how much will makes it way up the ladder for future updates across the line.
It has the clamshell hood and the floating roof, but look at the door handle used, that looks like something from the new Jaguar’s and not in the current LR models. The headlamps also have a different design from the current models, obviously a lot more sweeping, but will they be as recognizable as the current ones – you can usually see a Land Rover coming in the dark just from noticing the round headlight pattern, which is even more obvious with the LEDs in the 2010 refresh. And the side vent has a more horizontal stretch(Also Jaguar XJ like). All of these cues have me wondering if we’re looking at the first clues to what the next real Range Rover may look like.
Here are a few articles with some interesting insight into Gerry McGovern, the current Head of Design for Land Rover.
2010 Land Rover designer Gerry McGovern
2010 Land Rover: subtle changes for a more refined look
Gerry McGovern, designer, Land Rover/Range Rover – this one includes a video
