Land Rover Discovery Sport will kill off Freelander

The Discovery Sport, to be launched next year, is the start of a new three-family group of vehicles marketed under the headings of Utility, Luxury and Versatility, said Jaguar Land Rover director of marketing Phil Popham.

The Utility family will include a new Defender – slated for 2017 – which will be sold as workhorse cab-chassis and wagons. Popham indicates it could also include a leisure-oriented model.

The Luxury family is the Range Rover Vogue, Sport and Evoque, though Popham didn’t dismiss the possibility of adding a smaller model. Land Rover’s third family will be sold under the Versatility label. This will include the Discovery 5 – due in 2016 – and the Freelander replacement, the Discovery Sport. If Land Rover decide to go ahead with a smaller Evoque, it may spin off the platform to a smaller Discovery.

But Popham refused to talk about the replacement for the Defender. He said the company was involved in other projects and a new Defender wasn’t part of current plans. Land Rover has shown concepts of the Defender in the past, using them to gauge public opinion. The last concept was the DC100 which though receiving good reviews from attendees at the 2011 Frankfurt motor show, was thought to be too “soft’’ for the Defender tag.

The Discovery Sport – and the updates to the Evoque – will next year start to use Land Rover’s new engine family marketed under the Ingenium label. The first of the 2-litre petrol and diesel engines will be the oilburner that goes into production in the UK later this year.

It will be used in the Evoque, Discovery Sport and be adapted for some Jaguar models, including the mid-size BMW 3-Series rival, the XE sedan. It could even be adapted to the F-Type, said a Jaguar representative at the New York Auto Show, though said there were no plans. 

In-house drivetrain production means Jaguar Land Rover will no longer be tied to the Ford-design 2-litre EcoBoost and Duratorq engines, so saving on costs associated with licences. The same split from Ford’s engines is also under way at Volvo, which – like Jaguar Land Rover – is also a former division of Ford.

Jaguar Land Rover technical director Dr Wolfgang Epple said at the New York Auto Show that the new engines “are the core for our future’’. He said they are lighter, more fuel and emission efficient and more powerful than the existing 2-litre engines.