The Velar is the 4th member of the 47-year old Range Rover family. In a further show of support for the British car industry, the company confirmed the Velar will be built exclusively at its flagship Solihull plant in the West Midlands.
Since going on sale in 1970 the Range Rover family, heralded Britain’s greatest luxury export, has grown to include the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover Evoque. Together they have helped transform the fortunes of the UK’s largest vehicle manufacturer, accounting for 85% of all premium cars produced in Britain and contributing £10bn to the UK economy every year.
Dr Ralf Speth, Jaguar Land Rover CEO, said: “The expansion of our product range and building this British designed and engineered car in the UK is a sign of our confidence in British manufacturing. We are leading the global premium car industry with our commitment to our home market and our heart, soul and headquarters will always be in the UK.”
Built using Jaguar Land Rover’s leading lightweight aluminium architecture and powered by the latest ultra-clean UK-built Ingenium petrol and diesel engines, the new Velar is positioned between the Range Rover Evoque and the Range Rover Sport.
The Range Rover Velar is the third model to be launched at the Solihull manufacturing plant in just two years. It follows an injection of £1.5bn in new facilities and technologies at the plant which began with the Jaguar XE and F-PACE – proving that flexible high-tech manufacturing brings more models to the market, attracts more customers and creates more high-skilled jobs for the United Kingdom.
Production of all Jaguar Land Rover models at the four UK manufacturing plants directly supports more than 40,000 British jobs and a further 250,000 in the supply chain. In the past six years the company has more than doubled its workforce to support global demand for its products. Last year Jaguar Land Rover sold 583,313 cars – more than one every minute, 44 per cent of which were Range Rovers.
The Range Rover Velar will be sold in more than 100 markets globally and is available to order from summer 2017. The online configurator is open later today. The Velar will be on display at the Design Museum in London until 6 March for customers who are eager to see it in the flesh.
The car will also form the centrepiece of a new exhibition documenting 45 years of Range Rover, ‘Velar to Velar,’ which opens at the Solihull manufacturing plant on 28 March.
