L486 Archives - OVALNEWS.com - Always fanatical; Occasionally interesting Land Rover & Range Rover News

What and where is the L486?

Land Rover has various designations for their different models, not sure if they’re technically code names or just alternate ways to reference the vehicles.

Here are a few of the current models:

L316 – Defender

L319 – LR3 & LR4 – Discovery 3/4

L320 – Range Rover Sport

L322 – Range Rover – Current model(2002 – today), below is a picture used in some technical documents, I don’t have a picture like this for the other models.

L359 – LR2 – Freelander 2

L538 – Range Rover Evoque

L405 – Possible code for the next Range Rover

And back to the point of the post, the L486, it’s been referenced in the press since 2008 or so and has been described by them as a 7-seater Freelander, possibly to be called the Ventura. I take anything from the press with a grain of salt, but since 2008, it hasn’t really been brought up again.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/24/land-rover-developing-new-7-seater/

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20080624/free/957481398

I wrote about it back in April after finding some of the designers who worked on the project.

And just thought with the LA Auto show going on and Land Rover PR running at full steam, anyone who has a chance should start asking the LR PR people for comments for reactions. Or if you have any info, send it over.

Quick reference back to my article from April, here’s the info, a small reference to the L486 along with the L538, which would become the Range Rover Evoque:

http://www.people4business.com/seller-269321.htm

This person has done a lot of work for Aston Martin & Bentley – they list the specific items. The latest project is listed below:

WARWICKSHIRE (Oct 2007 & ongoing)

CAD ENGINEER – EXTERIOR TRIM – CATIA V5
LANDROVER L538 / L486
Initial design and feasibility studies for the following components: door claddings, rear spoiler, rear finisher, front and rear bumper cover, fender vents. Parametric modeling in Catia V5 to create fully modifiable master CAD models. Use of TCE to save and access data and create product structures. Liaison with styling, CAE and suppliers to mature designs.

Could the L486 be the 5-door Evoque?

And if you have some more current generation code names, please let me know.

One final item, you can see the alternate names in use all over the Land Rover website, below is a header graphic for the Range Rover Sport section, you can see the L320 in its filename:

LRNA_RRS_COMPARE_L320_10_EXT_LOC06-900×200.jpg

LRNA_RRS_COMPARE_L320_10_EXT_LOC06-900x200[1]

Just some more notes on the Land Rover / Range Rover branding split #landrover #rangerover

rr-na

When Range Rovers first became officially available in the US back in 1987, the name of the car company here was, Range Rover of North America – prior to that, you could get Range Rovers, but I believe they were all grey market. Here’s an ad from 1984, showing they were available.

Anyway, back to the focus of the post, just more notes on the separation that’s happening between Land Rover & Range Rover as brands. From the slow removal of Land Rover badges from the Range Rovers to the branding they’re using on the web. The actual Land Rover website has two distinct looks and logos depending on what models you’re looking at:

lr-web web-rr

The thing to notice there is that “Range Rover” logo in the upper left of the page. It’s those separate Land Rover / Range Rover logos that are showing up more often. Here’s the cover & last page from the iPad version of the OneLife magazine.

onelife

I didn’t notice all this extra Range Rover specific branding until the Evoque launch, I probably just wasn’t paying close enough attention prior, but now I can’t miss it. Especially when those first Evoque pictures were missing any type of Land Rover branding – a Land Rover badge did appear on the Paris show car.

And finally, back to that OneLife magazine/app, they seem to be very careful in talking about Land Rovers and Range Rovers as independent items which seems like a lot of PR editing.

Directly from the Ratan Tata article:

Tata wants to broaden the Land Rover and Range Rover model range and further differentiate the two brands to attract more customers to the business.

I just wonder what that means exactly? Is this going to be a Toyota/Lexus arrangement? We currently only have two Land Rover models in the US. If this grows with something like the still secret L486 project, where do the Land Rover models fit in? Why not lose them and go all Range Rover? Are they going to be a lot cheaper? There will be a Range Rover at the $40,000 level with the Evoque and I know it’s not the LR4 segment, but what’s going to be the differentiator? Is it just to help people with the confusion between LR & RR that happens at times?

Can someone explain?

lr-rr