REYKJAVIK, Iceland – Most industry executives would prefer their company’s products were compared to a gourmet meal rather than the blue-plate special, but that does not bother Land Rover’s Simon Turner when it comes to the Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque.
In fact, he likes to think of the two luxury CUVs as a ham-and-eggs combination, satisfying the tastes of distinctly different buyers at the entry end of the market for the toney British brand.
“People may ask, ‘Why are you dissecting the same market,’” the U.S. product planning chief says. “But the Evoque attracts a certain type of buyer. They are attracted to the design, while the Discovery Sport is a more pragmatic purchase.”
The ’15 Discovery Sport, which replaces the LR2, is arriving now at U.S. dealers. With a base price of $38,500, it sells at a modest $2,500 discount to the Evoque. The two vehicles share the same powertrain, a fuel-efficient 2.0L 4-cyl. and a 9-speed automatic transmission, and their platforms are identical from the front bumper to the B-pillar.
Both vehicles also give Land Rover a greater presence at the entry end of the market and the important compact CUV segment, areas of the luxury market experiencing a boom.
“We have to make the brand more accessible,” Turner says. “And we must develop products that are relevant to our markets. All the growth is in the compact segment, and we expect the Discovery Sport to do quite well.”
Turner says he expects 10,000 sales annually of the Discovery Sport in the U.S., a target that rivals the 12,440 copies the 3-year-old Evoque sold last year.
If the Discovery Sport hits its numbers, the CUV’s sales would zoom past the LR2 it replaces. The LR2 mustered just 3,619 deliveries in 2014, according to WardsAuto data. Hitting the 10,000-unit mark also would give more fuel to Land Rover sales, which grew 2.9% last year to 51,465 but saw its share of the luxury market remain flat at 2.5%.
Much of the lackluster performance was blamed on a product shortage that Land Rover leadership vowed to fix late last year. With sales up 17.5% to 10,198 so far this year, as well as a tidy share gain to 3.5%, it appears the pipeline indeed has been unplugged.
The Discovery Sport and Evoque share two other items: an assembly line at Land Rover’s Halewood, Liverpool, U.K., facility and sometime down the road a U.S.-spec 2.0L turbodiesel from the automaker’s upcoming Ingenium engine family.
