Aussies flocking to Jaguar's first SUV

About 100 Australians have put down deposits for Jaguar's first SUV, the oddly-named F-PACE, since local pricing was announced on December 10 and before the marketing campaign begins in April.

Despite a starting price of just under $75,000 and first deliveries being about six months away, in July or August, Jaguar expects the F-PACE to double the British brand's Australian sales and become its top-selling model, thanks partly to an increase in female customers.

Supporting the growth in Jaguar sales — which are expected to grow from about 10 per cent to almost a third of Jaguar Land Rover's total volume — will be at least 35 combined Jaguar and Land Rover retailers by the end of this year.

However, JLR Australia managing director Matthew Wiesner admits Jaguar's local growth — in large part due to the all-new F-PACE and XE sedan — will come at the expense of Land Rover, which last year found almost 12,000 buyers to Jaguar's 1300.

The F-PACE will enter the same large luxury SUV segment, which grew by almost nine per cent last year, as the BMW X5, Mercedes-Benz GLE, Audi Q7 and JLR's own Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.

"Some [F-PACE buyers] may hold off Land Rover purchases, but bugger it," he said. "Certainly a number of Land Rover and Range Rover customers have put their names down [for an F-PACE], but that's what we want.

"We want to see customers with Range Rovers in their driveways park an XE or F-PACE alongside it, rather than a [BMW] 3 Series or X3.

"It's not necessarily substitutional, it's more incremental. It's not a Range Rover in terms of capability," said Wiesner, who confirmed the F-PACE will be Jaguar's most popular model Down Under.

“I think F-PACE will be the volume car for Jaguar absolutely,” he said.

Despite going on sale in August, the mid-size XE sedan last year eclipsed the larger XF sedan, which was replaced this month by a redesigned model, as the leaping cat brand's top-seller with 580 sales.

But Jaguar is looking to sell well over 1000 F-PACEs in a full year, potentially doubling the brand's sales tally to as many as 3000 annual sales.

Wiesner hopes a large number of F-PACE buyers will be female – a demographic currently under-represented within Jaguar's customer base.

"Jaguar has been male-dominated for a long time, but F-PACE will be very different," he said. "F-PACE will open up the [Jaguar] brand to a much bigger audience, particularly women."

The local JLR chief said Jaguar's sales growth will see it become a much larger piece of his company's business, 90 per cent of which is currently generated by Land Rover.

"The company looks at things from a Jaguar Land Rover perspective – not two separate brands. The business must work well as one, but our share of Land Rover products will always be higher than in, say, Germany.

"Jaguar's share is smaller here, but we'd like to see it grow from 10 to 12 per cent of our volume to 30 per cent.

"Look what SUVs did for Porsche. Jaguar's position is not dissimilar."

So bullish is Jaguar about the F-PACE's prospects in Australia that it might face stock shortages from the Solihull factory in the UK, where some customers have reportedly faced waiting times of up to nine months.

Wiesner described expected delays on some models – including the top-shelf F-PACE S – as "nothing too dramatic" and "nothing to worry about", noting: "We're committed to planning for a fair chunk of production for our first year.

"We'll get the support we need because the factory sees how important we are from a market perspective. Australia is now a significant piece of global volume."

Supporting Jaguar's volume expansion will be 35 or 36 JLR dealers by the end of this year – down from more than 40 Jaguar and Land Rover dealers currently and including just six standalone Land Rover outlets, all of which will eventually become JLR retailers.

“Gone are the days of having Jaguar or Land Rover dealers. Every appointment from here on will absolutely be Jaguar and Land Rover together because that’s what we are,” said Wiesner.