JLR’s new identities: Range Rover, Discovery, Defender, Jaguar

JLR announced Wednesday that Jaguar’s first car under its new strategy will be a four-door electric GT priced at more than £100,000 ($124,200) with a range of up to 700 kilometers (435 miles).

The absence of the Land Rover name in the rebrand created controversy on social media within the UK, with some commentators assuming JLR had dropped the storied name. However, JLR confirmed the name would continue as a badge on its SUVs to serve as a “trust mark.”

“Land Rover will remain. It is strong, well known, and we will use that collective strength to give our brands authenticity and purpose,” a spokesperson told Automotive News Europe.

JLR will repurpose its showrooms to incorporate the new brands, with some selling all four and others focusing more effectively on a reduced number. The look is still being refined but will feature “no desks, softer furnishings and a much more client-oriented luxury experience,” Paddy McGillycuddy, head of JLR in the UK, told Automotive News Europe this year.

JLR in February opened its first Range Rover boutique in London’s upmarket Mayfair, run by dealership group Stratstone. JLR is shifting to the agency model for its dealers in the UK by the end of 2024 as part of a wider push to sell directly to customers. JLR begins the move to the modeling agency in South Africa in 2022.

In the US, JLR has asked some of its dealers to give up their Jaguar franchises amid the company’s transition to an electrified future. The company has begun the process of reducing Jaguar stores by offering dealers extra allocations of hot-selling Land Rover nameplates, such as the redesigned Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender, if they give up their Jaguar franchises. It wasn’t clear how many dealers had accepted the offer, nor was it immediately known what dealers would need to do to prepare for the subbrand strategy.