Range Rover has confirmed a fifth model line, the Range Rover GT, a grand tourer with coupe proportions. Every other luxury and premium brand already has one, so JLR is conspicuously late to this party.
The Range Rover GT preview car is the first built on JLR’s new Electrified Modular Architecture (EMA) platform, made at Halewood in the UK alongside combustion and hybrid models. It launches as a battery-electric vehicle, with the platform flexible enough to add a hybrid later if buyers want it. Power, torque, battery size and pricing are all still under wraps.
Going electric-only first is a brave call, and it reads as a direct answer to the Chinese brands bearing down on the luxury end at a frigthening pace.
The Chinese pressure JLR can’t ignore
As if it needed saying, Zeekr, Xpeng and Denza already sell big, tech-heavy electric coupe-SUVs, and they do it for roughly half what a Range Rover asks. A Zeekr 7X or Xpeng G9 undercuts a loaded Range Rover by tens of thousands while matching it on screens, range and cabin space. When the newcomers deliver most of the substance for half the money, a familiar badge only carries a buyer so far.
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ABOVE: The Range Rover GT
Everyone already has a coupe SUV
Range Rover is also entering a segment that is already jam packed. BMW has the X6 and X4, Mercedes the GLE and GLC Coupe, Audi the Q8, Porsche the Cayenne Coupe, and a veritable tsunami of Chinese slope-roof SUVs. The high-riding, raked-roof shape is everywhere now, and buyers keep gravitating to it, so Range Rover is following the demand rather than setting it.
the GT cabin uses a large central screen, a separate driver display, and a full-width air vent running across the dashboard. The dash is wrapped in a woven textile that hides the speakers within it. The platform’s flat floor frees up second-row legroom for long-haul touring, and there is a full-length glass roof. It is a clean, calm cabin, but it has nothing that breaks new ground.
The prototypes are finishing final road testing in a gold, topographic camouflage wrap inspired by the contours around JLR’s Gaydon headquarters. It is a nice touch, though these SUVs rarely see anything rougher than a tennis-club car park unfortunately.
JLR managing director Martin Limpert says the GT will remake the grand-touring segment, but has not said how. The company points to chassis tuning, battery thermal management and aerodynamics for highway range, with adaptive dampers and air springs handling the ride. Again, none of it is ground we have not driven over before.
The bigger job for Land Rover
As JLR looks to reinvent itself, the deeper story is that as Chinese brands push into more markets in greater numbers, legacy makers keep responding late, in a fight for relevance. Alongside the electric Jaguar due soon, Land Rover has to rejuvenate, lift its quality and reliability, and create rather than imitate. A handsome coupe-SUV that copies the class years after everyone else is not, on its own, the answer.
More details on the Range Rover GT are due later this year.
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Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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