Land Rover Range Rover Evoque Convertible Concept

We've come a long way from the cloth-top Defender. 

Many people thought the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet was a fluke, but it could actually signal the beginning of a crossover convertible trend. Land Rover is using the Geneva auto show to roll out a droptop Evoque concept. Rendered in a charcoal hue with 21-inch wheels and a two-tone, ivory-and-gray four-seat interior, the right-hand-drive Range Rover concept can be seen as the masculine yang to Nissan’s feminine yin.

The Evoque convertible concept is based on the Evoque coupe (i.e., the three-door version) and features a fabric top, a drop-down tailgate, pop-up rollover protection, and, of course, Land Rover’s Terrain Response system. The concept also includes an eight-inch touch screen in the center stack, a Meridian audio system, and surround-view cameras.

Land Rover claims that the roof-ectomy was achieved with “minimal changes to weight and torsional rigidity,” both big challenges for chop jobs like this. Most companies wouldn’t make those points about something they didn’t plan to actually produce. Indeed, close inspection of the car reveals details that suggest this is less a concept car than a production-intent prototype, including flaps ahead of the tonneau cover to accommodate the top structure, front-seatbelt anchor points, and even the split-folding rear seatback. Certainly, it is further developed than the DC100 concepts that Land Rover has been floating around recently.

Read More: http://www.caranddriver.com/news/land-rover-range-rover-evoque-convertible-concept-news

Chicago Land Rover 

Range Rover Evoque Wins North American Truck of the Year: Detroit Auto Show 2012

There probably weren’t too many surprises on this one. Since it’s introduction, the ‘baby’ Range has been making waves in the luxury SUV field, augmented by awards left right and center.

Although it faced fairly stiff competition from the updated 2012 version of Honda’s popular CR-V and the latest BMW X3, in terms of design and engineering, the Evoque was judged the overall winner in the 19th annual North American Truck of the Year awards, which took place on January 9th at Cobo Hall in Detroit, just prior to the opening of this year’s North American International Auto Show.

This represents the third time that a European branded vehicle has won the title, the last was back 2003 when the Volvo XC 90 took the honors. Interestingly, the only other European SUV to ever win North American Truck of the Year was the first generation Mercedes ML back in 1998, recognized as a game changer in the segment, much as the Evoque is today.

The North American Car and Truck of the Year awards are administered by a group of 50 automotive journalists from both the US and Canada, with the awards financed entirely by member dues (no advertising or commercial support for automakers or auto related businesses is accepted).

Read More: http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2012/01/range-rover-evoque-wins-north-american-truck-of-the-year-detroit-auto-show-2012.html

Chicago Land Rover

Just in: 2012 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque

Some of my colleagues were musing recently about the name of this vehicle. Must we wear out our keyboard-calloused fingers typing “Land Rover Range Rover Evoque?” It seems that the shortest vehicle in the company’s line-up has the longest name, such as the previous champ Land Rover Range Rover Sport. But, we must, as we have just added this upscale SUV to our fleet.

It’s a cliché, but perhaps the new Evoque is Land Rover’s attempt at putting the “sport” back into “sport utility.” For example, it’s much lighter than the rest of the line—a bragging right no doubt helped by the standard 240-hp, 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. Neither a big six-cylinder nor V8 engine are offered. So not only does the Evoque suggest a much less truck-like driving experience, it may also be much more fuel efficient than some of the brand’s behemoths. In fact, Land Rover estimates the stylish SUV will get 28 mpg on the highway.

Rather than being aimed at the landed gentry who need off-road capability to check on their back forty, the Evoque goes for a more metropolitan crowd. Think jacked-up Volkswagen GTI or an even more expensive Mini Cooper Countryman. The concept-car styling, giant on-road tires, and full glass roof all create a very different experience than an LR4 or “proper” Range Rover. While the Evoque has off-road modes for its all-wheel-drive system, the lack of a low-range or other hardcore off-road gear suggest this is more a soft-roader than an off-roader.

Our four-door model is equipped with the “Pure Plus Package” (the bottom trim level), which includes power leather seats, a backup camera (especially helpful given the tiny rear window), and the aforementioned panoramic roof. It also has the “Climate Comfort Pack,” which includes heating elements for the front seats, steering wheel, washer jets and windshield. Interestingly, the $750 Sirius satellite and HD radio option doesn’t come with complimentary satellite service.

Our lightly-optioned Evoque stickered at $45,745. That strikes most of us as being semi-precious, especially since our tested Audi Q5, BMW X3, Mercedes-Benz GLK, and Volvo XC60 all cost thousands less. And those cars aren’t exactly bargains themselves.

Read More: http://news.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/12/just-in-2012-land-rover-range-rover-evoque.html

Chicago Land Rover

FEATURES: By Design: Range Rover Evoque

The three most striking British cars of the past sixty years were the original Alec Issigonis-designed Morris Mini-Minor/Austin Seven twins, the Jaguar E-type, and the 1970 Range Rover. In many ways, the Range Rover was the best of the three: it was the most original and the most influential, in that it helped touch off the worldwide SUV boom by making a rugged, all-wheel-drive utility vehicle socially acceptable everywhere. The Mini was important, but it was Fiat's Autobianchi Primula, not the Mini, that ultimately turned almost every family car in the world -- including today's BMW Mini -- into a transverse-engine, front-wheel-drive derivative of the offset-engine, in-line-gearbox layout developed by Dante Giacosa. The XK-E remains a fabulous design icon, attracting as much attention today as it did fifty years ago, but it really did not inspire other manufacturers to explore radical structural solutions or to make equally inexpensive high-performance cars.

The original two-door Range Rover, on the other hand, did far more than give British farmers a nice ride into town after they'd finished (metaphorically) plowing the fields with their handsome all-purpose luxury car. It quickly became a status symbol in its domestic market and caused nearly every carmaker in the world to propose something similar -- including, in a certain sense, Ferrari with the new FF. SUVs from Maserati, Jaguar, and Alfa Romeo are constantly postulated, and BMW, Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche have already succumbed to the lure of a big-buck big box. And they sell them in huge numbers at high prices, just like the original.

I'd seen the Evoque in auto shows and thought it a nice piece of work, but it was seeing the production version rushing up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year that really brought home the sense of what a good design it is. It is close in concept and execution to the first Range Rover, thereby justifying its name, and it really does evoke memories of Spencer King, Gordon Bashford, and David Bache's brilliant original. The two-door body is part of it, but above all it is the short overhang, the high ramp angle in front, and the uncluttered body form that complete the effect.

They're not really similar-looking, given the solid rectangularity of the original Range Rover and the swooping wedge shapes of the Evoque, but a similarity of purpose comes through clearly. The Evoque is surprisingly aerodynamic, as befits this carbon-conscious era, and its chopped-top, tapering side glazing is the antithesis of the tall, open upper of the Bache design, but there is a discernible purity of purpose in both designs. They're family -- essentially the sort of thing one can see in looking at pictures of an old man's younger self and then those of his great-grandson. Not the same but indissolubly linked. It's a very good bloodline. There are details to discuss and disagree about, perhaps, but altogether this is a superior design for a compact, agreeable SUV.

Read more: http://www.automobilemag.com/features/by_design/1110_by_design_range_rover_evoque/index.html#ixzz1bKl0fuNp

2012 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque - First Drive Review

Can style rule in a utilitarian realm?

That’s the $43,995 question riding the broad shoulders of the smallest-ever Range Rover, the Evoque. To be accurate, it’s the $43,995 to $53,895 question, if we include all the trim levels. That lofty base-price range makes the thesis issue—the preeminence of style as a purchase motivator for SUVs—critical to this Range Rover newbie. A matter of life and death, even.

The product planners and marketing troops would probably want to protest at this point that their new vehicle delivers something its competitors—primarily the Audi Q5, BMW X3, and Mercedes-Benz GLK—do not: serious off-road capability.

After our first Evoque experience, which included substantial episodes of bouncing around in wild Welsh terrain that ranged from rocky trails to deeply rutted mud tracks—all in persistent rain—we readily concede that this small-scale Range Rover would leave its German rivals either mired down or high-centered on some lonely moor. However, the Range Rover people also recognize that most Evoque owners probably won’t venture farther from pavement than a dirt road or pea-gravel parking lot.

Competitive Checklist

So if superior off-road credentials don’t count for much with urbanites who have no off-road aspirations, where’s the competitive edge? It’s not price; the Evoque’s least expensive get-in—for the basic Pure Plus five-door model—is higher than upscale versions of the Q5, X3, and GLK.

Read More: http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/car/11q3/2012_land_rover_range_rover_evoque-first_drive_review

2012 Range Rover Evoque to Offer Plenty of Customization Options

If the 2012 Range Rover Evoque you order later this year arrives feeling like a stripped-down econo-ute, you didn’t check enough boxes. At the 2011 Geneva Auto Show, Land Rover announced a comprehensive customization and option program that allows customers to tailor their three- or five-door Evoque to suit a wide variety of tastes (and budgets), from clean simplicity to Range Rover–esque opulence. The Evoque will be available in 12 exterior colors and with three contrasting roof treatments, as well as with five wheel designs ranging from 18 to 20 inches in diameter. A dozen interior colors also are available, along with different wood and metal trim pieces. Kick plates are available in aluminum and chrome, while roof rails can be rendered in black or chrome.

If that’s too much decision-making for a person to bear, fear not: the combinations will be aligned along three themes: “Pure” (think base model), “Prestige” (dressier exterior, glitzy 19-inch wheels, two-tone interior coated in leather and wood), and “Dynamic” (sportier exterior with unique fascias and wheels, available contrasting roof treatment, intensified interior in darker colors). Beyond that, Land Rover has come up with its own “designers choice” themes, which it “with carefully coordinated color and material combinations that have their own distinctive character,” according to Gerry McGovern, Land Rover Design Director.

A final bit of fine-tuning can be done once customers take delivery of their Evoque: LED-based ambient lighting is provided in a range of colors that can be selected by the occupants, although if the sportiest mode of the adjustable Terrain Response chassis-adjustment system is selected, the interior is bathed in red. Cool.

Read More: http://blog.caranddriver.com/range-rover-evoque-to-offer-plenty-of-customization-options/

2012 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque Five-Door Official Photos and Info - Auto Shows

After showing the three-door Range Rover Evoque at the Paris auto show in September, Land Rover, as expected, used the occasion of the Los Angeles show to unveil the five-door version.

With 20-inch wheels and styling that eschews typical SUV tough-guy cues such as faux skidplates, the three-door and five-door are aimed at upscale urban drivers who aspire to but can’t quite reach the $60,495 Range Rover Sport. Dimensionally, the Evoque twins are the same except that the five-door is about one inch taller and rear-seat passengers get about two more inches of shoulder room in the more-spacious back seat.

As in the three-door, the five’s powertrain will be a 2.0-liter turbocharged direct-injection four-cylinder making about 240 hp paired with full-time all-wheel drive. The engine is from Ford’s new family of EcoBoost four-cylinders. The powertrain will make the Evoque twins the two most expensive four-cylinder vehicles on the U.S. market.

The Evoque uses the largely steel, front-drive-based car platform under the Land Rover LR2, although only about 30 percent of the parts are carry-over. The Evoque’s sportier stance and proportions required major changes to the body stampings and suspension, says Land Rover managing director Phil Popham. The three-door Evoque should come in around 220 pounds lighter than the 4250-pound LR2, the five-door about 154 pounds lighter, says Popham.

One crucial difference between the three- and five-door: under U.S. law, sport-utility vehicles with two passenger doors are subjected to a withering 25-percent import duty. The so-called “chicken tax” owes its name to a 1963 trade dispute with France and Germany when the U.S. placed the duty on some agricultural goods and trucks in response to European duties on American-sourced chickens.

Trucks were different then, but the duty remains on the books and the urban-chic three-door (two passenger doors plus one tailgate) Evoque will have to pay it, while the five-door Evoque will be exempt. So beyond rear-seat comfort, the biggest difference between the two body styles will be their profit margins for Land Rover.

 Read More: http://www.caranddriver.com/news/car/10q4/2012_land_rover_range_rover_evoque_five-door_official_photos_and_info-auto_shows

Land Rover Illinois

Range Rover Decides Hybrids Make Most Sense For Gas Guzzlers

The 2012 Range Rover Evoque--the stylish new baby "soft-roader" that's Land Rover's smallest-ever luxury vehicle--will not be offered with a hybrid-electric version to improve its gas mileage.

That's the word from John Edwards, Land Rover's global brand director, who noted that in Europe, the Evoque will come with a 2.2-liter diesel engine that delivers 42 miles per gallon on the European test cycle.

And that was the goal set for the original Land Rover LRX concept when it debuted at Kensington Palace in June, complete with an appearance by Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham.

Weight penalty

Instead, Edwards said, the company's first hybrid-electric vehicles will be versions of the larger Land-Rover LR4 (sold in the U.K. as the Discovery) and the larger Range Rovers, most likely including the Range Rover Sport that shares the LR4's platform.

Indeed, there's considerable logic to applying hybrid drive to your largest and least efficient vehicles. Edwards noted that the weight penalty of a hybrid system was greater in a smaller vehicle like the Evoque than in larger sport utilities.

Read More: http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1052509_range-rover-decides-hybrids-make-most-sense-for-gas-guzzlers

Land Rover Dealers