Females queue up for first Range Rover drop-top

Land Rover expects females to comprise the vast majority of customers for the first open-top Range Rover in its 45-year history – the Evoque Convertible – which has already notched up almost 100 Australian orders before launch.

Australian pricing and specifications for the drop-top Rangie were announced way back in November 2015 – well before the global launch in France in March and a full year before its official on-sale date of November 1 (2016).

Speaking at this week's local media launch, Jaguar Land Rover Australia managing director Matthew Wiesner said the Evoque Convertible would attract an older, more female-centric customer base, due to its focus on style and a near-$85,000 starting price – about $10,000 more than the Evoque three-door on which it's based.

The average age of Evoque SUV buyers in Australia is in the late 30s, with women accounting for about half of all sales since the model was launched five years ago in November 2011.

"I think there will be a fairly sizeable female opportunity there," he said. "This is a fashionable car that will skew more towards females. It's a nice design focus for Evoque in its current life.

"Given this car sits at round $85,000, it's an older audience. It's more of a fashion statement about how it looks rather than goes, but it can still do all the things you expect from a Range Rover."

Wiesner said the Evoque Convertible was likely to attract more convertible buyers than SUV buyers – particularly in strong drop-top markets like the Gold Coast -- and that but could not name any direct competitors.

"The broader picture here is we're creating more options for buyers in the [Jaguar Land Rover] group to move around. Frankly, we don't mind if a Rage Rover Sport owner moves into this, but from a conquest point of view, there aren't many models.

"It's a fairly niche proposition, the convertible market in Australia, but this at least allows us to get involved. It's a unique proposition that offers the capability others don't. The convertible adds a nice point of difference, it adds a design story to it.

"Evoque is a hell of a design statement in the first place and there's a certain number of people who want to drive a convertible. This throws a spanner in the works for people that might want something more."

The local JLR chief said Evoque Convertible pre-orders have been higher than expected, but admitted sales would be relatively slow compared to overall Evoque sales, which average between 2000 and 2500 annually.

"We're not far from 100 pre-orders already, which is way stronger than we thought we'd be. I think if we did five to 10 per cent [of total Evoque sales] or 200 a year we'd be happy."

JLR Australia communications and PR boss Tim Krieger conceded that a soft-top based on Land Rover's smallest model could alienate some of the British off-road brand's traditional fans.

"Probably in some ways, in the same way the Evoque did, but it turned out to be our top-selling model ever," he said.

Although the open-top SUV is not a new concept (think Jeep Wrangler and Nissan's short-lived, US-only Murano convertible), Land Rover bills it as the world's first luxury compact SUV convertible and the world's most capable all-terrain vehicle.

However, Wiesner said he expects other manufacturers to follow suit as the ongoing global SUV craze continues to spread into vehicle types beyond wagons and coupes.

"We don't think it will be just us in that particular segment," he said.

As we've reported, the Evoque Convertible arrives in two specification grades, SE Dynamic and HSE Dynamic, each with the option of aluminium turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol or diesel engines matched exclusively to a nine-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive.

Prices have increased slightly since they were announced a year ago. Opening the range at $84,948 plus on-road costs is the petrol-powered Si4 SE Dynamic, while the Ingenium diesel TD4 SE Dynamic is just $395 pricier at $85,343. Likewise, the top-shelf TD4 HSE Dynamic ($93,195) commands the same small premium over the Si4 HSE Dynamic ($92,800).

That's well north of the cheapest MY17 Evoque hard-top (the $56,040 Td4 150 Pure AWD five-door manual) at base level, where there is no spec-for-spec soft-top equivalent.

However, the price premium over the three-door Evoque 'Coupe' on which the convertible is based shrinks to about $11,000 for the flagship petrol and about $15,000 for the top-spec diesel.

As the first MY17 Evoque model to arrive Down Under, the cabriolet is the first Land Rover to arrive with Jaguar's new high-resolution 10.2-inch colour touch-screen and InControl Touch Pro infotainment system with smartphone integration, door-to-door navigation and premium sound system as standard.

While the base SE Dynamic comes standard with 17-inch alloy wheels and powered leather front seats, additional features for the HSE Dynamic include head-up display, solar windscreen, fog lights, auto high-beam, 18-inch alloy wheels, configurable ambient interior lighting, illuminated Rangie tread plates, bright pedals and heated and cooled front seats with 12-way power adjustment.

Of course, a host of expensive optional extras are available, including metallic paint ($1870), seven bright premium metallic paint colours ($3750, including the orange hue pictured here), LED headlights ($3820), a host of 19- and 20-inch alloys ($2010-$4690) and a windbreak ($600).

A number of driver aids are also optional – either as part of a pack or individually – including semi-automatic parking ($2360), surround camera ($1860), blind spot monitor ($1460), wade sensing ($720), tyre pressure monitoring ($860) and, for $980, lane keeping assistance, lane departure warning, autonomous emergency braking and driver condition monitor.

Adaptive cruise control with queue assist, forward alert and high-speed intelligent emergency braking costs $2680 extra on the HSE Dynamic, but is unavailable for the SE Dynamic.

Unique features of the four-seat convertible include an electrically-operated fabric roof with Z-fold mechanism that takes 18 seconds to stow and 21 seconds to raise, both at speeds of up to 50km/h.

Claimed to be the longest and widest fitted to any vehicle on sale today, the cloth roof folds away fully flush with the rear bodywork and safety is aided by the addition of a pair of auto-deploying aluminium roll-over bars hidden in the rear bodywork.

However, the folding soft-top reduces space in the boot, which houses a temporary spare wheel and can be accessed internally only via a ski-port, to just 251 litres.

As well, additional body reinforcements to the all-steel D8 platform it shares with other Evoque models and the Discovery Sport make the convertible a massive 280kg heavier than the Evoque hard-top, at a hefty 1745kg in HSE petrol form.

Fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are both up, therefore, from 5.1 to 5.7L/100km and from 134 to 149g/km for the 132kW/430Nm TD4 diesel, while the 177kW/340Nm Si4 petrol consumes 8.6L/100km and emits 201g/km -- up from 7.8L/100km and 181g/km.

The Evoque Convertible comes with the same five-mode Terrain Response system and the same approach, departure and break-over angles of 19, 31 and 18.9 degrees respectively as the Evoque Coupe and five-door, alongside which it is built at Halewood in the UK.

Land Rover has sold more than 500,000 Evoques globally since 2010.

2017 Range Rover Evoque Convertible pricing (plus ORCs):
Si4 SE Dynamic -- $84,948
TD4 SE Dynamic -- $85,343
Si4 HSE Dynamic -- $92,800
TD4 HSE Dynamic -- $93,195