Tata Motors’ Jaguar Land Rover chose the Paris Auto Show for the global debut of new models, the Jaguar XE sedan and the Land Rover Discovery Sport. Both the vehicles had been unveiled last month but the global launch was much awaited. The pricing has been announced too – the entry-level XE would cost 27,000 British Pounds while the Discovery Sport would be available for less than 30,000 British Pounds. That comes to around INR 27 lakh and INR 30 lakh, respectively, before duties in India.
The latest Land Rover is not to be confused with the bigger Discovery 4. The Discovery Sport is basically a new Freelander, albeit with enough changes to justify the ‘Discovery’ and ‘Sport’ in its nomenclature. For example, unlike the Freelander, the Discovery Sport’s rear suspension features a mutli-link set up instead of MacPherson struts while the front set-up has been lifted from the Range Rover Evoque.
The new SUV will come in both two-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive versions – a 2.2-litre SD4 turbodiesel engine churning out 184 bhp will power the latter, while the lighter two-wheel-drive will get a 150 bhp eD4 diesel motor. There is no information if the Discovery Sport will come to India anytime soon, but it should. Once here, it will compete with the Audi Q5 and BMW’s X3 that are soft-roaders essentially, while the Disco is first a serious mud-plugger and then a suave road car. Oh yes, the seven seats in the Land Rover will give it an instant advantage too.
Much has been written about Jaguar’s new entry level sedan so we’ll keep the description short here. The press release does not give the details of the variants so we can only tell you about the top-end XE-S variant that comes with a supercharged 3.0-litre V6 petrol engine putting out 340 bhp and 450 Nm torque. An eight-speed automatic gearbox, with paddle shifters behind the steering wheel, helps the car dismiss the 0-100 km/h sprint in 4.9 seconds (claimed) while the top speed is an electronically-restricted 250 km/h.
India will get the sedan with 2.0-litre, four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines with the same eight-speed automatic transmission of the XE-S; however, Jaguar might throw in a six-speed manual variant as the entry-level version. In addition to the debut vehicles, both Jaguar and Land Rover also unveiled their new luxury goods collections at the auto show, adding to Jaguar Land Rover’s lifestyle range.
Related: Gorgeous Jaguar XE Unveiled in London: Pics Inside
