Land Rover in the family way

Spare a thought for those who obsess about Land Rovers. The Defender, Discovery and Freelander model ranges are structured simply enough, but what about Range Rover? Is it a make, a model, a lifestyle choice... who can tell?

Range Rover-badged vehicles form the 'luxury' family in Land Rover's three-tiered product portfolio – a point that came to light during an interview with the company's Global Brand Director, John Edwards.

Answering an innocent question about the evolution of styling language, Edwards introduced the three-family principle that informs Land Rover's view of its own model range.

"We clearly look at the market and... increasingly, you'll hear us talking about three distinct segments in the SUV market: the luxury segment, the leisure segment and the dual-purpose segment – the utility segment," he observed.

"Increasingly, we believe we want to and we plan to have three different families of vehicles living in the SUV market.

"They'll all be Land Rovers at their heart, they'll all have some common Land Rover design DNA, but they'll also have some common-but-distinct family DNA as well."

But presumably it's not just the Land Rover design team that sees the product portfolio structured in three families, the rest of the company no doubt does also – and not just in visual terms, but in respect of branding. Edwards confirmed this.

"Land Rover is our master brand; we have three families that sit under the Land Rover master brand; one of which is Range Rover.

"The dual-purpose/utility vehicles will be much more functional by their nature, much more angular and physically robust. The leisure vehicles are probably much more based on versatility, driven by versatility, family values – they're social vehicles if you like.

"The luxury vehicles – the Range Rover vehicles – are much more about prestige and refinement and image."

With the Defender known to be ceasing production at the end of 2015 and a successor planned for production some point after that, the iconic model is the only one to be a 'family' all by itself in the Land Rover range, although Edwards did point out that it's a model range composed of numerous variants.

"Land Rover is at the heart of all these brands; Land Rover is our master brand; Land Rover is the sort of head of the family if you like. But Defender, at the moment, we have a whole range of different Defender vehicles. We happen to sell less than 20,000 of them worldwide, so it's a very small family, but... Defender is a brand in its own right. It stands for something very different [by] the purest definition of a brand, but it has Land Rover at its heart – and that will continue.”

Does that leave the way open for Land Rover to promote Defender as its own brand – to the point where owners say: 'I have a Defender' rather than 'I have a Land Rover'?

"No, I'm not suggesting that actually," Edwards demurred. "I'm not suggesting that it will be any different than it is today. But I would argue that in the purest term of the words... when people talk Defender they have something very different in their minds – very different character, very different values – than they do when they talk Discovery or Freelander or Range Rover.

"For us, what's really important is that all of our products – whichever products they are – they have Land Rover's capability at their heart. That's what sets them apart from the competition."

Branding and nomenclature have been – and continue to be – a problem for Land Rover. The Range Rover, when introduced in 1970, was its own make and model. It wasn't until the late 1980s that it was embraced as a model only, within the broader Land Rover range.

But subsequent to the introduction of the Range Rover Sport and the Evoque more recently, the role of the name Range Rover has changed again. It's not quite a make, but nor is it a model alone. In fact, it's more a sub-branded name to associate three different vehicles in the one family.

Toyota has done the same thing with naming its Prado model 'LandCruiser Prado' in Australia, although that early need to relate the smaller SUV with the larger LandCruiser has faded as the Prado name has taken on a brand life of its own in the minds of Aussie off-road fans.

Sales of the Range Rover in North America dominate other models in the Land Rover range, says Edwards. It's part of the reason – other than quality issues at the time – that Land Rover chose to relaunch Discovery and Freelander as the LR3 and LR2 respectively. With the update to the just superseded Disco 4, the American counterpart was renamed LR4.

"Eight or nine years ago the decision was taken to have a different nomenclature strategy in North America," Edwards explained. "I think our image in the States right now is fantastic. Our dealers are incredibly supportive at the moment. We're selling very well, we've got very long order banks across the model range. So I think the momentum behind the business in North America right now is very positive."

Why is this significant?

To start with, it's unlikely that Land Rover will revert to the Discovery and Freelander names by which the rest of the world knows those two models in North America and the Middle East. There's been some considerable investment in turning around perceptions of the brand – and the new alphanumeric model names were central to that. And with Land Rover sales on the rise, globally, why re-break something that wasn't broken?

"Land Rover's year-on-year sales growth, calendar year, is just over 20 per cent..." Edwards said.

"It's a great figure, but it could have been better; we're capacity-constrained at the moment. Both Solihull and Halewood are working 24/7, so we're absolutely rammed at the moment."

So Edwards' reticence about realigning model names across the globe in the near future was understandable, when motoring.com.au asked whether the Americans would have the names Discovery and Freelander reintroduced into their lives.

"It's possible; I guess it's one of those ones we'll constantly review. But right now it's working well for the States. It's not just the States, incidentally --, it's also the Middle East."

Land Rover’s global design boss Gerry McGovern told motoring.com.au last year that the next-generation Freelander will become part of the Discovery family, and cited possible names including Discovery Sport and Discovery Explorer.

Apart from grouping the Discovery and Freelander replacement, which is also expected to offer seven seats, more closely within Land Rover’s leisure family, the move will take advantage of the larger SUV's greater cachet value. But Edwards would not be drawn on that.

"At the moment we have Discovery and Freelander sitting in the leisure family... we'll have to wait and see."

Don't be surprised, however, if the next Freelander comes to market bearing the global badge 'Discovery LR2'.

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