"Speedmonkey" (Speedmonkey)
09/30/2013 at 10:17 • Filed to: Land Rover
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"Speedmonkey" (Speedmonkey)
09/30/2013 at 10:17 • Filed to: Land Rover | 0
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The new !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and Range Rover Sport have only recently been launched but demand is so high they're both racking up long waiting lists.
Both cars are based on the same aluminium chassis and look outwardly similar, but only share 25% of components. Both are over 400kg lighter than their predecessors, and are vastly superior machines. In
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I said: "
Never before has a new model so completely obliterated its predecessor
"
Buyers think so too. Demand is running 40% higher than Land Rover had anticipated. The waiting list for the Range Rover is 6 months and for the Sport it is 9 months.
The Solihull factory that churns out both cars is working 3 shift patterns to produce Range Rovers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And it can't increase production any more than that without building new factories.
To make matters worse the engine suppliers, Ford, won't increase its capacity so even if Jaguar Land Rover could increase its car building capacity it wouldn't have enough engines to put in them.
Demand in China is so high that buyers are paying premiums equivalent to £50,000 on top of a list price of £284,000.
Huge margins on the Range Rover and Sport are almost single handedly funding Jaguar Land Rover's investment for the future in terms of factories, technology and new models. The company will create 1,700 new jobs on the back of a £1.5 billion investment, which includes its own engine plant - scheduled to start production in 2015.
JLR's owner, Tata, pledged to support the investment but so far the company is doing a good job of providing the cash itself.
It's no wonder Jaguar is planning its own SUV, based on the
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.
Background information: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
> Speedmonkey
09/30/2013 at 11:06 |
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Glad to know that there are so many people who can afford a Chelsea Tractor in this economy, when I can barely afford to pay attention to a used car, let alone buy one.
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Speedmonkey
> BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
09/30/2013 at 11:08 |
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I've got 2 cars! Neither of which cost me more than £1500
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BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
> Speedmonkey
09/30/2013 at 11:22 |
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I've got three, one of which cost me less than 1300$, and all three are LONG since paid off. My house is paid off. I have no consumer debt, and I am a college graduate, professionally employed for a decade.
But I don't have the buying power anymore to buy another car without accruing onerous amounts of debt for a term longer than the useful life of a newer, planned-obsolecense mainstream car that doesn't stand up to 100K+ miles like cars did even a decade ago, especially on under-maintained roads.
I paid a bit over $20K for my 2005 Legacy GT Limited (turbo, loaded), used, in 2007 (I did sell a previous car to offset some of it)
But, I would have to struggle harder to afford a $20K 2009-11-ish Forester base-model non-turbo with a manual gearbox today. A car that is relatively older, few options, and half the power output, even if I traded or sold the Legacy to offset it.
But I am so happy that there are so many people that can deluge the Range Rover dealerships, especially in CHINA, that I am tacitly forced to support by US government trade policy, who can afford to pay more than a third of a million dollars for a Range Rover.
I am *glad that US economic policy is starving the US middle class for funds, but printing money for the FED to pump into the stock market for the oligarch class, and basically sending all production of any finished goods to China and everywhere else, while the buying power of the middle class evaporates under higher costs for EVERYTHING, while outright LYING about the inflation and unemployment rates.
*-sarcasm, if it was too subtle to notice.