Range Rover leads new wave

THE third generation Range Rover is the first in a wave of new models that will come from Land Rover over the next five years.

Replacements will arrive for the core Discovery, Freelander and Defender models, while a new smaller Range Rover, codenamed L320, will be added to the British marque's line-up.

First on the local front will be an updated Discovery range in thesecond half of the year, followed by a new Freelander derivative in the third quarter, around the time of the Sydney motor show.

The Freelander HSE will be a new range-topping variant with additional features over the ES grade including Alpaca leather interior, premium seats, cupholders and a Harman Kardon branded ICE (In-Car Entertainment) audio system with extra tweeters, an amplifier and a sub-woofer.

Land Rover Australia is also set to introduce the short-wheelbase 90 series Defender late in 2002 or early 2003, with the official sign-off likely in the coming months.

With the Defender buyer type changing in Australia towards a younger demographic and people not just looking for a workhorse, it is hoped the additional variant will provide an incremental increase to slowing Defender sales.

Two Defender 90 derivatives are on the cards, a base model and an Extreme.

BANKING ON RANGE ROVER

LAND Rover Australia is looking to the all-new, third generation Range Rover to spark a turnaround for the local operation after three years of negative sales growth.

Sales of Land Rover vehicles in Australia had grown steadily since the mid-90s, peaking at 6664 units in 1999, before dropping by 21 per cent in 2000 and a further 0.5 per cent last year to 5246 units. Land Rover was the only mainstream European brand not to record sales growth during the past 12 months.

"There was a lot of new competition that came into the market last year from BMW, Hyundai, Mazda and Ford, as well as upgrades from some of the major competition like Mercedes-Benz with the M-class, so given that we didn't have any new product last year I think we actually did quite well," Land Rover Australia marketing manager Glenn Forster said.

"I'd expect that we will hold our sales this year and then next year maybe see some growth with the new product that will start to arrive."The company has forecast sales of 6000 units for 2002, split between its four-model line-up as follows - Discovery the big seller with 3500 units, Freelander 950 units, Range Rover 800 units and Defender 750 units.

The company already has more than 100 orders for the new Range Rover, despite customers having yet to see the new model in the metal.

Land Rover Australia's dealers are pushing for 50 per cent of the forecast sales to be covered by the time the car goes on sale on July 1, which means they would like to have 400 orders in the system over the next four months - a figure that represents more vehicles than the outgoing model sold in total during 2001.

The bullish sales forecast for Defender is likely to be the stumbling block for the British marque's local operation in its effort to post increased sales for the coming year.

Defender's figures have been in decline since as far back as 1996, with the model only finding 242 new homes during the past 12 months, so Land Rover Australia will need an improvement of more than 200 per cent to meet its targets for the original off-road model.

Freelander sales could make up some of the difference based on its performance last year when 1442 units were sold - up just over 70 per cent on the previous year.

But supply of the Freelander may be constrained following the model's introduction to the US market, where sales of 22,000 units are planned.

Australian supply will be governed by the larger UK and US markets, which will account for about 50 per cent of total production capacity of 90,000 units.