Ken Gratton•4 Jul 2014
NEWS
Jaguar Land Rover SVR brand for Oz
Special Operations brand will be front and centre of JLR marketing in AustraliaJaguar Land Rover is gunning for Mercedes-AMG and BMW M with its 'Special Operations' arm announced last month.
And chief among the weapons in the performance division's armoury is a new badge: SVR.
The Range Rover Sport will be the first vehicle to spawn a performance variant emblazoned with the SVR legend, as we reported last week. In Australia it will spearhead a range of enhanced performance vehicles based on standard Jaguar and Land Rover models, with the SVR sub brand also encompassing a seemingly limitless range of options and accessories for those cars.
Michael Winkler, Managing Director for Jaguar Land Rover Australia, spoke with motoring.com.au this morning, explaining how the SVR sub brand will fit in with the company's local marketing strategy and how it might lift both Jaguar and Land Rover in performance-mad Australia.
"AMG and the M badge, for BMW, are obviously very successful niche enhancements [for] those particular brands, and we think there's a spot for us as well – not as a direct copy," he said. "Certainly there's an appetite in the market for doing something just that bit more special with your car than what you can buy just off the showroom floor."
So SVR branding and enhancements will come to Australia, but Winkler was reluctant to volunteer a sales split for the SVR machines versus the rest.
"It would be too soon for me to give any indication. I think Australia very traditionally – in the luxury segments – has had a fairly large appetite for this sort of product. The success of the German competitors in that space speaks for itself."
On that, history does illustrate that Mercedes-Benz and BMW do very well from their respective AMG and M performance cars in the local market, so there's no reason to believe Jaguar Land Rover would be any different. Clearly, JLR has great expectations of the SVR brand, with the enhanced models bound to be at the centre of marketing and advertising activities in this country – rather than a low-key sideline.
"Absolutely," Winkler confirmed. "These sorts of things tend to be the hero products that you have in your range – and will take a prominent role in that."
In explaining how the Special Operations division brings a new dimension to product customisation, Winkler took a mild swipe at tuning shops like Brabus and other similar firms (like Bowler, which modifies Land Rovers like the one pictured) with his following remark.
"I think the merits of a project like this is really that you can offer these sorts of things to customers; at the same time the customer knows he's got the backing [of the manufacturer]. It's OEM-enhanced, rather than by a shop down the street."
Asked whether the SVR brand enjoyed an advantage in being associated with Jaguar Land Rover – two brands very different in character from the German triumvirate, Winkler had this to say: "It should; our niche in the market... is to draw on the Jaguar brand, the performance/luxury/precision [factor], and for Land Rover/Range Rover the ultimate off-road experiences – in a style that is slightly different from the other offerings in the market. That's the justification for being in the market."
According to Winkler, the SRV brand has enormous potential to extend the brand image for both Jaguar and Land Rover.
"There are a number of really interesting ideas; at this point the first products are the SVR-badged Range Rover Sport – and of course the F-TYPE Project 7 will be created by the same division – so it gives you a good idea of the two extremes..."
Land Rover stands to gain the most from the SVR association; the company renowned as a mud-plugger has been steadily honing its sporty image over a decade with first the Range Rover Sport and more recently the Range Rover Evoque and its high-performance variant, the Evoque Autobiography Dynamic. Winkler sees "some interesting opportunities" opening up for Land Rover with the SVR enhancement program. But it won't be just performance-related tweaks presenting those opportunities.
"I think the headline will be 'bespoke commissions', really. That can take you in any direction," he offered.
Asked whether SVR enhancements and variants would be available across both Jaguar and Land Rover ranges for all models, Winkler would not be drawn.
"I think it's too early to talk about that... [they already have] two very interesting projects now on the go...
"It is now a starting point – and I think there'll be quite fantastic things to come out of it.
"But can I for sure say every single variant? I don't know at this point."
And for that reason Winkler wouldn't say whether the Special Operations division would get involved in something as far removed from day to day reality as a big-tyred, Baja-ready Defender, for instance, but did admit that one's "imagination could go wild with that sort of stuff."
Tags
Jaguar
Land Rover
Car News
4x4 Offroad Cars
Performance Cars
Prestige Cars
Written byKen Gratton
Our team of independent expert car reviewers and journalists
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