The Managing Director of Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) of JLR, John Edwards, has revealed the new three-tier strategy of the company to develop and design ultimate path-breaking models. The primary motto of this new strategy is to produce new car models under three heads – ultimate off-roading, ultimate luxury and ultimate sporting performance.
Edwards said, “We are smaller and more entrepreneurial by nature. Speed to market will be key and we aim to be a high-margin business.”
The ultimate performance car models will rival the likes of Mercedes-AMG and the M division of BMW. These new car models will be sold under the brand SVR and the first model in this series will be Range Rover Sport SVR. SVX badge will be used for the ultimate off-roading car models, while the ultimate luxury models are yet to be christened. The all-new Range Rover SVAutobiography could well be the first model with this badge.
Edwards said, “We will operate under three principles: profit, promote and protect. First, SVO must make a profit. Second, we must promote JLR’s wider business. And third, we must protect the integrity of our brands.”
JLR has also said that in spite of the fact that the SVO division will be dedicated to build one out of the block models for customers, there will not be any re-engineering work. It also said that the limited-run production models such as the Project-7 are complicated and a perfect scale between exclusivity as well as scale has to be maintained. Also, SVO will be looking forward to an armoured variant of the popular Range Rover.
JLR currently has 150 individual cars in production every year, but has constant concentration to increase that number. Edwards concluded, “We can’t disrupt the factory flow. Limited-run cars like the Project 7 are more complicated. We have to get a balance between scale and exclusivity.”
