Land Rover has confirmed that it will launch a sport model to take on the Porsche Cayenne and BMW X5 – a model first scooped by Autocar magazine two years ago.
This is an exclusive artist’s impression of a rendering shown to journalists at the Frankfurt motorshow. Aggressive looking it features bulging wheel arches, a Ferrari-like body crease and a muscle-car bonnet bulge.
Although Land Rover design boss Geoff Upex stressed that the rendering is not the car due on sale in early 2005, some of its design cues will feature. "This is not the car we will make," he said. "This rendering just shows we can take a Land Rover design DNA and use it for a dramatic sporty car."
Upex likened the design to Audi’s Steppenwolf concept. "Elements of that have made and will make production, but the concept itself won’t," he said.
Most radical of the elements due to appear in the sporty Land Rover is the ‘wedge’ – the rising shoulder line seen on the rendering. This is a design feature typical on sports cars, but which has never featured on a Land Rover. The bodyline through a Land Rover is always horizontal – a practical feature to give occupants maximum visibility.
The three-door body design shown on the rendering – an echo of the original Range Rover – will not make production either.
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