Land Rover has been capable of scripting a small turnaround after Ratan Tata brought the distinctive brand into his fold. Numbers of the Land Rovers on the roads have been steadily rising, not only in India but in the rest of the world as well.
Land Rover is poised towards the future and a ruffle-up of its model line-up has been in the works for quite a time. Interestingly, a camouflaged Land Rover was spotted by a member of Team-bhp inside the premises of the Technopark in Trivandrum, India. It was fitted with UK-registered Number plates, and we really had not much clue regarding its motive of presence inside the Technopark.
An important point to be noted is that an almost similar car was spotted undergoing testing in UK last year by CarMagazine. Could it be the test runs of the model before its roll-out in India?
After a lot of analysis we understand that this test mule is the next-Gen Freelander. Probably they have clad it in dissimilar body panels to shoo away nosey neighbours. The reason we feel so is the company notification about the Next-Gen Freelanders getting merged into the wider Discovery brand. JLR has also informed that these Freelanders will be based upon a stretched platform of their best-selling model, the Range Rover Evoque. Land Rover will thus be left with three major sub-brands, the other two being the luxurious Range Rover brand as well as the utilitatarian Defender brand.
Adding fuel to the speculation is the presence of Tata ELXSI within the Technopark limits. It is engaged in the manufacture and testing of embedded systems and software for automobiles. This Freelander might have had arrived there to get its electronic brains checked and tweaked.
The Next-Gen Freelanders are touted to hit the roads sometime in 2014. They might be powered by the AJ-200 range of four cylinder engines, along with a supercharged petrol engine as an option. Five-seater and Seven-seater will be the combinations available.
-Bishakh
Spy Pic: Team-Bhp
Information via IAB & Autocar UK
Tata ELXSI develop the embedded system pgms for the LR and Jaguar. Had seen Jaguar some months back. Its nice to see the LR inside technopark.