PARIS SHOW: Evoque a game changer

Among the companies that have forged ahead by moving away from a set image and building cars that don't seem to be aligned with the brand in the same way are Mercedes-Benz with its A-Class or Porsche and its Cayenne. Land Rover finds itself placed in the position that it must evolve or stagnate. That's one underlying reason for the company bringing the Range Rover Evoque to market.

"You have to recognise where you've come from," said Gerry McGovern, Land Rover Design Director. "[and] recognise now where you are, in order to understand where you want to go. It's about relevance; we want to talk to a much bigger group of people -- and there are people out there that actually -- currently -- see our vehicles as being irrelevant to them.

"That vehicle out there [the Range Rover Evoque] is going to change the perception of our brand -- and there will be people who have never considered us before, who will now find us a relevant proposition."

"There are opportunities to take this brand and actually mould it to what people actually want and find relevant."

McGovern, speaking at the Paris motor show, says that from his point of view, as a stylist, it's the desirability of a car that makes it relevant to the buying public.

"A lot of people that will find this vehicle really appealing... quite frankly, they're not going to be the people looking at car magazines every week. They're people who maybe aren't actually that interested in vehicles, but they see a vehicle as an extension of their lifestyle, their image.

"We have to maintain our integrity, the things we have there as a core essence of the brand, but actually mould it in a way that suits people's lifestyles."

Land Rover has rolled the dice with the Range Rover Evoque. Available as it is in front-drive variants as well as the four-wheel drive offerings, and being styled in a way that appeals as much to urban users as traditional offroaders, the Evoque may well draw fire from Land Rover loyalists by being inconsistent with the company's brand image.

But McGovern has an argument to counter such a view -- and it concerns the recently superseded Discovery 3.

"If you take Discovery 3, which [won] numerous design accolades [for] its no-nonsense, form-follows-function approach -- 'utilitarian' applied with rigour... the world's architects, designers... they all love it, but it didn't resonate with the customers, because they actually saw some of the very things that it [won] accolades for, as being either 'downmarket' or too utilitarian, 'brutalist'... van-like...

"People want the capability, they want the vehicles to be useable, versatile, etc, but they still want a level of luxury -- and they want things that are visually desirable as well. There's nothing wrong with that."

According to McGovern, sales of the 2011 model year Range Rover don't reflect any concern on the part of the buying public that the upgrade is too 'bling'-laden (as described by "purists").

McGovern has basically stated what most people intuitively know: the most outspoken critics of a vehicle are obviously not the people buying that vehicle -- and nor does their opinion necessarily count.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site.