Jaguar to join the SUV brigade?
The leaping cat is eyeing a slice of the lucrative SUV market to bolster its bottom line, suggests respected UK publicationJaguar is contemplating a departure from its roots with a proposed new crossover model to rival similar offerings from Audi, BMW and Mercedes, according to a report by UK’s Autocar magazine.
The publication quoted Jaguar global brand director Adrian Hallmark, who promised “breakthrough” design and engineering for the new SUV, as well as for the production versions of the C-X16 and C-X75 concepts revealed over the past 18 months.
The report suggests the SUV could take a number of forms, one of which would be to spin it off one of Jaguar’s sedan platforms – most likely the new C-Class/3 Series-rivalling model due around 2015.
Autocar is speculating the new sedan will use an all-aluminium architecture, differentiating it from its steel-chassis rivals. Lending weight to this theory, Hallmark was quoted as saying Jaguar “can offer a different proposition (in the compact sedan category) that costs more but is worth the extra outlay”.
If the SUV were to make use of the same chassis it would help amortise costs and give it a technical edge over the BMW X1, Audi Q3 and Mercedes GLK.
As for the platform itself, Autocar suggests it will be a shortened version of the new modular aluminium ‘Premium Lightweight Architecture’ that JLR has developed to underpin its future larger models, including the imminent new Range Rover and next-gen XF and XJ.
According to the publication, the other option is for Jaguar to use the Range Rover Evoque as a basis for its own compact SUV, which would also enable it to reduce its corporate average fuel economy figures.
“We have full kit in the group to do what we want to do,” Hallmark was quoted as saying. “We dominate the SUV segment [with Land Rover] and we have an iconic SUV, so we don’t need it as Jaguar Land Rover, the company. But as Jaguar, we need to do something.”
For now though, the new compact sedan remains the top priority, with the crossover reportedly a 50/50 prospect that would boost Jaguar’s growth in Brazil, Russia, India and China.
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