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Land Rover to build Discovery Sport at new Brazilian factory

Looking forward to getting your mitts on a new Land Rover Discovery Sport? Well you should, because it promises to be a markedly better product than the Freelander/LR2 it replaces. Just don't assume it will necessarily be built in the UK, as just about every Land Rover has in the company's 66-year history. The new Discovery Sport (pictured above in Sao Paulo) will, of course, be built in the UK, at the Halewood plant where the Evoque is made and which has in the past handled the Freelander, the Jaguar X-Type and a variety of Fords. But it will also be assembled for local consumption at JLR's new factory in Changsu, China. And, according to the press release down below, it will also be made for the Latin American market at the new factory being built in Brazil. The new plant is being built in Itatiaia on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and will come online in 2016. Once it gets up to speed by the end of 2020, it will have the capacity to build 24,000 vehicles each year, ratcheting its workforce up from 400 when it opens to nearly 1,000 when all's said and done. The Discovery Sport will be one of the products made there for the local market, but it surely won't be the only one. As in China, we expect the Evoque will be built there as well, and we wouldn't be surprised to see the new Jaguar XE join it in the near future, either. Don't expect the Brazilian-made vehicles to be sold in the US, though: those will likely still be imported from the UK... at least, that is, until the facility said to be under consideration for the southern United States opens its doors. JAGUAR LAND ROVER CONFIRMS ITS ALL-NEW DISCOVERY SPORT FOR BRAZIL FACILITY - Jaguar Land Rover confirms Discovery Sport as one of the models to be produced at its new local manufacturing facility in Brazil - R$750m investment in the new facility in Itatiaia in the State of Rio de Janeiro - Annual production capacity of 24,000 units for the Brazilian market only – from 2016 Sao Paulo, Brazil – Jaguar Land Rover confirmed today, at the Sao Paulo International Motor Show, that its breakthrough Land Rover Discovery Sport will be one of the first models to be built at its new R$750m (GBP240m) local manufacturing facility in Itatiaia, Brazil. The new factory, which will see a total investment of R$750m (GBP240m) by the end of 2020, will supplement UK production and have the capacity to build 24,000 vehicles annually for the Brazilian market.

The Jaguar XKSS, famed ride of King of Cool, is new again

You might remember earlier this year, when we told you Jaguar had confirmed that it would follow up the limited-run of continuation E-Types – completely new, built from scratch classics – with a new run of the impossibly cool XKSS. Those folks in Coventry weren't pulling our leg, because we're here in LA and the brand new XKSS is here, too. Actually, they're 60 years late. If you remember the story we told you when Jaguar said it'd be building these things, there were originally to be 25 cars in total. 16 were built, and the other nine were destroyed in a fire at the Browns Lane factory. Thus, nine original XKSS cars have been missing, and the nine XKSSs that Jaguar will build for a cool GBP1 million each will round out the initial production run. If you're not familiar with the XKSS, here's a little background. Jaguar won Le Mans three times in a row in a factory racer known as the D-Type. After withdrawing factory support in 1956, some privateers continued on with the car, but Jaguar didn't. That left several D-Types sitting about Browns Lane in various degrees of completion. Sir William Lyons had them converted to road spec, which involved adding such niceties as a windshield and passenger door, but otherwise they were not far removed from the Le Man-winning cars they were based on. That meant that they were, to put it mildly, a lot of car for the street. The kind of person an XKSS appealed to was stylish and adventurous, and someone who craved speed. Someone like Steve McQueen, perhaps. His old XKSS is sitting in the Petersen Museum in LA, which not-coincidentally is where Jaguar assembled us to see the wraps pulled off the new one. The "new" XKSSs are generally faithful to the original design, with the bodies hand-formed off bucks that were themselves created off an original XKSS. The body is made out of exotic magnesium, an extremely lightweight metal which is often misunderstood to be extremely flammable. It is, but much more so when it's in little pieces, like shavings; formed into a car body, it's not quite the incendiary device you might think it'd be. Even the processes to form the chassis is the same, such as the bronze welding technique used to bond its tubing. A few concessions to modern safety are fitted, however. There's a fuel cell, partly due to the additional safety it provides but also to better resist the harrowing effects of modern ethanol blend fuel.

Jaguar Land Rover remains bullish on diesels

Despite Volkswagen's recent diesel scandal, Jaguar Land Rover is pushing ahead with ambitious plans to roll out the technology across most of its lineup in the coming years. Jaguar and Land Rover will add diesel engine variants to every model in their lineups, except for the Jaguar F-Type sports car. Land Rover launched the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport with available 3.0-liter turbocharged V6 diesels, and together they have sold more than 330 units so far in September, their first month on sale in the United States. JLA officials say they've seen no fallout from VW's emissions problem and are adamant their diesels meet EPA standards. "That has been our strategy, and it is not changing," Joe Eberhardt, Jaguar Land Rover North America CEO, told the Automotive Press Association on Wednesday in Detroit. "You have to deal with the situations as they arrive. We are confident of diesel." Jaguar will get another diesel next year from its Ingenium engine family, which will initially be sold in the XE sedan and the F-Pace crossover. It's a turbo 2.0-liter four-cylinder unit and makes 180 horsepower and 317 pound-feet of torque. A JLR spokesman said the Ingenium has not yet gone through the EPA certification process, and the diesel-powered models will arrive in the fall. Jaguar also plans to add diesel engines to the flagship XJ and XF sedans. Land Rovers, including the Discovery and Evoque, will also get diesel options, and the company estimates the technology will offer 20- to 30-percent improvements in fuel economy, depending on the vehicle. Eberhardt said it is "too soon to tell" if the diesel market will be weighed down by Volkswagen's situation. The German automaker admitted to cheating on emissions tests to make its diesel-powered cars appear to run cleaner than they actually do in real-world situations. The ensuing outrage forced longtime VW chief executive Martin Winterkorn to step down and prompted a reorganization of the company, which faces legal and regulatory action around the world. Still, Eberhardt maintains JLR is "very confident" in its diesels, which are part of its strategy to grow sales around the world. Land Rover has experienced rapid growth under the ownership of Indian conglomerate, Tata Motors, while Jaguar is set to revitalize its lineup with new entries like the XE and F-Pace to reach a broader market segment.