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Land Rover could build a baby Defender on a platform sourced from BMW

The collaboration between BMW and Jaguar-Land Rover started out small, it was originally limited to motors for electric cars, but it might not stay that way for long. The Tata-owned British sister companies will allegedly rummage through Munich's sizable parts bin to build nearly half a dozen cars scheduled to come out during the 2020s. According to a report by British magazine Autocar, Jaguar has started designing two small cars that will join its growing family of Pace-badged soft-roaders. They'll be new additions to the firm's portfolio, not replacements for existing cars. One will be a regular crossover, while the other will be a swoopier, form-over-function four-door model ostensibly marketed as a coupe. Both will slot at the very bottom of the Jaguar portfolio, below the already pretty small E-Pace, in a growing market segment where the competition is fierce, and profit margins are thinner than an i3's tires. Here's where BMW apparently comes in. Instead of developing a platform from scratch, the two crossovers could ride on the hybrid-ready, front-wheel drive FAAR architecture found under the third-generation 1 Series hatchback and the upcoming 2 Series Gran Coupe. If we believe an earlier report claiming Jaguar and BMW will also share engines, most of the hardware found under the sheet metal will have German genes. All-wheel drive will certainly be available, and it could also come from BMW. The same platform -- and, presumably, the same engines -- would provide the basis for a Land Rover-badged model positioned in the same segment. Autocar learned it will be to the next-generation Defender (pictured) what the Mercedes-Benz GLB is to the G-Class. Some key design cues will carry over, but the two models will share absolutely nothing under the sheet metal. The soft-roader could resurrect the Freelander nameplate when it goes on sale during the 2020s. Looking even further ahead, the front-wheel-drive platform the next Mini Countryman and X1 will utilize could find its way under the replacements for the next Range Rover Evoque and Discovery Sport. These plans could very well change; the Evoque and the Disco Sport barely entered their second generation, so they're not due for a replacement until the second half of the coming decade. While neither company has confirmed or denied the report, the partnership makes sense from a business standpoint.

Jaguar C-X17 resurfaces in China with gold finish, five-seat cabin [w/video]

Some concept cars make the rounds of the auto shows and are then retired. But a number of automakers are showing that a fresh coat of paint can go a long way towards rejuvenating a show car and giving it a new lease on life - at least as far as the auto show circuit is concerned. Lexus did that recently with the LF-LC concept, initially unveiling it in red at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show, then repainting it a dark shade of blue for the subsequent shows in Australia and LA. Mini did the same with the Rocketman concept. And now Jaguar has done it again with its C-X17.
Initially unveiled in electric blue at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Jaguar then rolled the crossover out again in liquid silver for the Dubai Motor Show earlier this month. Now the concept is back again at the Guangzhou Motor Show in China with a fresh coat of rose gold.
Looking decidedly more luxurious than the previous iterations, this gilded C-X17 concept also bears another change: while the previous versions featured a four-seat cabin, this one has been redone with a more conventional five-seat configuration that more buyers would likely go for. It's also got a new interactive infotainment system and another system that warns passengers of pedestrians or cyclists approaching from the rear before they open the door. Check it out in the high-res image gallery above and the video clip below for a closer look.

Our 2018 Jaguar F-Pace has an infuriating shifter

Let me preface this by saying that I quite enjoy our long-term 2018 Jaguar F-Pace. Its quick, handsome and pretty good on a road trip. It handles well for a crossover, too. My biggest gripe with the F-Pace is the interior, and my biggest gripe with the interior is the damned rotary shifter. I've never fought a vehicle so much just to get it to shift into reverse and neutral. I have a tendency to rant, but usually offline, in the company of friends and under the influence of a few drinks. I've spent a lot of time behind the wheel of the F-Pace, and an incident this week in an automatic car wash this week prompted this post. Simply put, it took probably 10 seconds for me to get it to shift into neutral and another 10 seconds to get it back into drive. This is annoying in any situation, but when you're holding up a line of cars trying to wash off a thick layer of salt and ice, it's infuriating. The rotary shifter simply wouldn't rotate into either drive or reverse. This might be user error and it might be exclusive to our particular F-Pace, but I don't recall have the same issue in our XE (I admittedly drove it less) and I definitely have never had such problems with other shifters. Not even the BMW-style fixed rocker type or weird handle ones in the Toyota Prius. I even consulted the owner's manual to make sure I'm doing it properly. The only thing I can think of is that I'm not putting enough pressure on the brake pedal while turning the dial. Yet, even those editors who haven't experienced this problem admit that the design has lost its way. Jaguar introduced the rotary shifter in the original XF back in 2009. At the time, its housing was compact and offset, serving the functional purpose of freeing up space for center console storage (as you can see in the photo above). The same concept was later applied to the Jaguar XJ and copied in the Ram 1500. Now, compare that design to the shifter in the F-Pace (as well as the XE and current XF). It's right in the center with a bezel that takes up as much room as the shift boot on a manual transmission. There's no added storage benefit and the surrounding piano black trim collects dust and fingerprints like a forensics squad. In other words, instead of a space efficiency solution, it's a space-robbing novelty that drives me nuts at the car wash. Related Video: Image Credit: Jeremy Korzeniewski, Jaguar Design/Style Jaguar Long-Term Garage Crossover SUV Luxury Performance jaguar f-pace jaguar f-pace s