Land Rover insiders have confirmed that the company is considering a new ‘white space’ concept - a model that would push it into new sales territory should the car make production.
The model is understood to be a new crossover below the Range Rover Evoque that design director Gerry McGovern is keen to pursue.
Besides being a new offering, this car is said to explore a new design language. It also features undisclosed new technologies that are likely to significantly improve powertrain efficiency and reduce weight.
Land Rover’s challenge, however, will be to source a shared platform enabling this cheaper car to be both feasible and profitable. For Jaguar Land Rover to develop a new premium compact platform on its own would almost certainly be too costly and resource-greedy, even if Jaguar also used it.
The visual flavour of the new model could be derived from the DC100 next Defender concept, which Land Rover says has been very well received. That would produce a bold, chunkily clean-cut look offered by no rival.
Giving it Range Rover sub-branding seems unlikely, the car instead supplementing the Freelander and Discovery, which are being redesigned as more sophisticated leisure market offerings.
The new model’s concept has been arrived at using the same market research and creative techniques that yielded the LRX concept car, another white space concept that made production as the Range Rover Evoque.
There’s no confirmation of when this compact crossover could appear, but when it does it will almost certainly be as a motor show concept, possibly within two years.