JLR says it needs to completely reinvent the Land Rover Discovery for its fourth decade and is starting from a clean sheet.
However, with it vying for space alongside the Defender, Range Rover and to a lesser extent Jaguar, this looks like a significant task.
It was hard not to raise an eyebrow when JLR’s new CEO, Adrian Mardell, told Autocar in August that one of the company’s four “brand pillars” was about to undergo a complete rethink.
“The [brand] equity in Discovery is less today, and lots of people have lots of views on why that might be,” he said. “They’re interesting, but they’re only interesting if they’re informative about what [we] do next. We need a dedicated think tank to do that. I’m a great believer in deep and meaningful thinking and giving people the time to do that.”
For keen JLR watchers, Mardell’s revelation was something of a surprise. In June, the company gave a mammoth presentation to investors, announcing the business was going to be reworked as a “house of brands” – four of them, to be precise.
Defender was described as “embracing the impossible… for adventurous audiences”; Jaguar as “a radical, modern luxury EV brand… the modern luxury experience that is a copy of nothing”; Range Rover as “the peerless leader in modern luxury, delivering the exceptional for the most discerning clients”; and Discovery as “delivering luxurious versatility… delighting new family audiences”.
Clearly, that description of Discovery wasn’t quite detailed enough for the new CEO. Indeed, when Autocar asked, just three months after the presentation, if Discovery could be distilled, as the new Jaguar brand has been, into just four words, he said: “It may not do so, as I haven’t got the four words I’m looking for. ‘Family’ is most likely to be one of them. ‘Space’ is likely to be one of them.
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With increasing ev opportunities, it might be time to start selling, under the Rover brand, appropriate Tata cars, outside existing core markets. The previous experiment was in the distant and different past. MG, Dacia, Polestar and others, perhaps even Citroen, Cupra and Skoda, point to a direction for success for a mainstream brand positioned below JLR.
Hilton Holloway and JLR should forget all this hand wringing, and just admit the big problem with Discovery 5 is the way it looks. Nothing to do with number plate positions, the basic proportions of the car are just so wrong, and on top of this the actual lines of the back end look like they were rushed for a nearly missed deadline. Owners of the classy looking Disco 4 didn't want to replace it with something looking like this, after all it's supposedly a premium product. Having to always park it reversed up to a wall would get to be a pain after a while, I'm sure.
I think 'catnip' has it spot on. The discovery never looked special or even interesting. All the Landrover range meet most buyers fundamental requirements. The most important thing is how good it looks and JLR do know how to do this; the appearance is everything.
D5 oversized Discovery sport styling just didn't work... unless you squint really hard
I dont understand all this complicated philosophical nonsense about refreshing the big Discovery. I drive the current model and it is a brilliant tool for every mission you can throw at it.
Creating the new model is surely not a complicated philosophical debate. Take the defender base, add a more luxury focussed interior, body with a hatch back and seven seats, a little less bloat than the rear end of the current model and some sharper lines. Job done.
Why all this discussion and trashing of the discovery brand and mission I do not know. There is a very thin line between where Defender and Discovery need to sit, between utility and luxury while not treading on Range Rover, to differentiate between them, but it is clearly there.