Land Rover will celebrate its 60th anniversary this year. The company reached a high point of over 200,000 vehicles sold in 2007, over 17% more than the year before.

Range Rover Sport, the pride of the company, has proved to be a luxurious and well equipped vehicle. The impressive interior covers a 4,2 litre powerful engine. It also has leather seats for passengers’ comfort, a rear-view camera and DVD players, a 14-speaker sound system, a heated steering wheel and lots more features.

Not only does the vehicle look impressive, it’s also safe with its electronic pressure distribution, gradient descent control and a four channel ABS.

What more could you want? Even though the Range Rover Sport is a big vehicle, it’s incredibly easy to drive and manoeuvre. It drives smoothly and is very spacious, accommodating not only the weekly shop, but much more besides.

Land Rover is nailing its colours to the eco-friendly mast with this LRX concept vehicle, shown at the Detroit Motor Show.

Shorter than a current Freelander and with a 2 litre biodiesel-electric hybrid providing the power, it claims to be able to reduce fuel consumption by 30% and cut emissions to 120g/km. It will run solely on electric power at lower speeds. Other green items include door inserts made from recycled plastic bottles.

(this news snippet was taken from fwi.co.uk)

The Range Rover Sport TDV8 has won 4×4 Australia Magazine’s prestigious 4WD of the Year Award for 2008. Land Rover dominated this year’s awards with 3 vehicles in the top 4 positions.

Land Rover has now won the 4WD of the Year award three out of the last four years, further cementing Land Rover’s reputation as the world’s leading manufacturer of 4WDs.

Dean Mellor, editor of 4×4 Australia Magazine, praised the Range Rover Sport for its breadth of capability and technology, “It’s the whole package this vehicle, it’s absolutely amazing both on road and off road. The technology in this vehicle is like nothing else…it drives like a car on the road but it’s still very economical”.

The big surprise was the Land Rover Defender, a highly specialised 4WD, finishing a close second. The Range Rover Vogue TDV8 completed Land Rover’s dominance in the awards with 4th place.

2007 really has been a busy and exciting year for the Land Rover brand, with record sales globally. The Range Rover Sport, and in particular the new TDV8 diesel engine, has been a major part of this success. (more…)

THE Land Rover Freelander outsells all other smaller off-roaders and there are loads out there to choose from.

It’s made in the true Land Rover go-anywhere tradition, but also performs well on the road, and is easy to drive.

Reliability is not good in earlier models so buy very carefully, and walk away from any which don’t have service history.

The suspension gives ride and comfort similar to those of a car but there is much more roll – as with almost all off-roaders, and corners cannot be taken as fast as in a saloon or hatch.

A number of engines have been used since the Freelander was launched. Earliest models had either the Rover 1.8 petrol with 118bhp, or the 2.0-litre Rover turbo diesel with 95.

This was replaced in 2000 with a special version of the much quieter and more powerful BMW 2.0-litre unit. At the same time, a range topping 2.5-litre V6 petrol was added, with standard five speed auto gearbox. (more…)

The year starts with a new Range Rover for sale, the TDV8. The new model features, among other things, four-zone aircon, climate control windscreen and automatic rain and headlight sensing.
What’s more, extra leather upholstery, more stowage space and wood trim have been added to the new model, along with improvements to the graphics on the touch screen and instruments.

To suit more tastes, a new interior color (Storm) and two exteriors colors (Alaska White and Lucerne Green) are available.

Last year brought a 20% bigger sale than 2006. John Edwards, Managing Director of Land Rover UK, thinks it is due to introduction of TDV8 diesel engine. The new model, apart from the mentioned changes and improvements, will also feature fuel economy.
“Most Range Rover customers who would previously have bought a V8 petrol now choose a TDV8 instead, which offers petrol-like refinement but with 32% better fuel economy.” Edwards adds.
A carbon offsetting programme of 45,000 miles is included in on-the road price.

Prices of the new models vary from £55,100 for TDV8 HSE to £74,900 for V8 Vogue Supercharged SE.

A Luxury Crossover–Still Land Rover
By Matt Stone

The LR2 is based on the same unibody chassis architecture as the Volvo XC90 and uses a variant of its transverse-mounted straight-six, replacing the outdated and generally less-than-stellar Freelander.

The aforementioned 3.0-liter six spools out a smooth 230 horsepower–less than the class average, but enough. It’s backed by a six-speed automatic with standard drive, Sport drive, and manumatic modes that make the most of the powerplant. (more…)

Ford’s Premier Automotive Group (PAG) is back in the black thanks to the Jaguar Land Rover division.

PAG reported a 12-month pre-tax profit of £256 million for 2007, and this has been attributed to healthy Land Rover sales and cost reductions. In 2006, PAG reported a loss of £174 million in 2006.

Ford, which employs more than 2,000 people in Halewood, also revealed that full-year revenue for PAG was £16.8 billion, compared with £15.2 billion in the previous year, reports the Liverpool Daily Post.

A Ford spokesman said: “Jaguar Land Rover had its best-ever year in 2007. It was solidly profitable for the full year and was profitable in every quarter. Land Rover also had its third record sales year in a row.”

It was recently confirmed that Tata Motors had beaten One Equity Partners and Mahindra & Mahindra in the contest to be named Ford’s preferred bidder to buy the Jaguar and Land Rover brands.

(this article was taken from englandsnorthwest.com)

Land Rover is taking part in a $1.2 million (£600,000) pilot to test the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to better track the movement of parts.

In the trial, real-time information from RFID tagged parts can be shared among workers and transferred to mobile phones, PDA’s and web-based tracking software.

Each container or part has an RFID tag, which wakes up when it enters a localised range and begins transmitting. This range is localised, so the tag is not transmitting all the time. Once it transmits the information though, software systems alert the end-user of where the parts are in the building.

“On-time, precision delivery of components is integral to our plant’s efficiency because disruptions in the supply chain can slow or even halt vehicle assembly,” said Jonty Cook, Land Rover’s head of inbound logistics.

The pilot, which is part of a larger RFID development project at the University of Warwick, will end in March. Afterwards, the organisations involved hope to roll out the scheme throughout the West Midlands to all other auto industries. It is hoped the technology will spread to industries where the movement of high valued parts is important, such as the rail and aerospace industries. (more…)

Land Rover celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. This occasion is a great opportunity for the company to launch a new model of Defender, the SVX.

The vehicle will be available in two versions, a 90 soft-top and a 90 station wagon. Metallic black paintwork and black graphic decals will feature on the new models. Other features include a silver finish, five-spoke alloy wheels, reinforced front undershield and clear rear LED lights.

When it comes to the interior, the new model will incorporate custom-designed seats, a new audio system and a Garmin satellite navigation system.

The soft-top model will be available with a silver tubular cage supporting a tailor-made black fabric hood.
“The Defender SVX looks very different to a spartan 1948 Land Rover, but it´s still an essentially practical vehicle that will enable you to go almost anywhere,” says Land Rover’s managing director, Phil Popham.

The new model will be available in the Summer. The edition is limited to 200 in the UK and includes 140 two-seat 90 soft-tops and 60 four-seat 90 station wagons.