Electric cars seem to be everywhere. And even though they haven’t flooded the GCC market yet, we have a feeling that we’re not too far off. And something that could support this statement would have to be the news that the electric powered Land Rover Defender has passed the “real-world scenarios” test.
Land Rover, in association with Al Tayer Motors, launched the all-new 2013 Range Rover Sport, at an invite-only event at Meydan Hotel in Dubai earlier this month. We received a formal invitation directly from the dealer, and on hearing about this, the editor of this site asked us to write about our impressions as he didn’t want to attend the event himself to “avoid the crowds,” even as he got an invite himself for being a Range Rover customer.
No, we didn’t buy an Evoque, contrary to what you may have seen on the internets. Despite our issues with them, we asked Land Rover for one and, despite our issues with them, they still gave us one. We assume it’s a 2013 model, although with almost 9,000 km on the clock, it could be a 2012 for all we know. Not that it matters. It’s a good-looking car, to say the least.
A couple of new cars were launched in the last few weeks and a couple of cars will be launched in the coming few weeks, almost all fresh nameplates for the GCC, and all revealed at events in the UAE.
As much as Land Rover’s PR people like to downplay it, the British carmaker is now owned by India’s Tata, in a role-reversal that took more than 60 years to play out. While we’re still denied the chance to drive the new Range Rover, our own “L322” Range Rover Vogue has been doing a great job as the family minivan.
The 2014 Range Rover has been revealed in time for the 2013 New York Auto show, although if you kept track of the internet, you’ll have seen the leaked photos already. If you hadn’t, you could’ve guessed anyway what it’d look like — a cross between an Evoque and a Range Rover Vogue.
We haven’t even seen a 2013 Range Rover yet, but tuners Startech have already modified one and the kit is set to debut at the Geneva Motor Show this month.
Apparently, if you keep asking Land Rover’s PR agency politely for the past eight years why you weren’t invited to any of their major press events, they keep saying they have no space. Then when you publicise that they aren’t inviting you to events, instead of making amends, they simply bury their heads in the sand and ban you. So we won’t be able to bring you any review of the Explorer-esque new Range Rover, but we can certainly keep bringing you updates on our very own Range Rover. It’s been four months since we picked it up, and we’ve finally taken it in for an issue that’s been bugging us since we bought it.
Land Rover has issued a recall of two models, the 2012 Range Rover Evoque and the 2012 Land Rover LR2, over a brake issue. Both models share a similar platform.
Indian-owned Land Rover has signed a “letter of intent” with Saudi Arabia’s National Industrial Clusters Development Programme, which could be the first step in opening their first factory in the Kingdom.