When Tata Motors first acquired the British marquee around six years ago, we knew that sooner or later, the Indian automaker will make use of the latter’s technology and design language to boost the image of its own cars - for all the right reasons. According to reports, Tata Motors is on the final stages of finalising a joint project with its subsidiary Land Rover to develop a five to seven seater SUV, priced in the range of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 25 lakh, which will rival the likes of Toyota Fortuner, Ford Endeavour and Hyundai Santa Fe.
This project codenamed, Q5 involves a team of 45 engineers headed by Mr Karl Heinz Servos and is expected to take shape by 2016. If the project passes the company’s techno-commercial viability parameters, the said SUV will be built on the platform of Land Rover’s current generation Freelander 2 and will be based on JLR’s premium development processes even as it will be substantially modified to adapt to Indian market conditions. What this means is that the SUV is expected to be around 50 to 85 per cent different from the existing Freelander 2, but it will retain the genes of a Land Rover SUV with JLR quality.
The project was initiated by Carl Peter Forster, former CEO of Tata Motors, and carried forward by Tim Leverton and late Karl Slym.
This project codenamed, Q5 involves a team of 45 engineers headed by Mr Karl Heinz Servos and is expected to take shape by 2016. If the project passes the company’s techno-commercial viability parameters, the said SUV will be built on the platform of Land Rover’s current generation Freelander 2 and will be based on JLR’s premium development processes even as it will be substantially modified to adapt to Indian market conditions. What this means is that the SUV is expected to be around 50 to 85 per cent different from the existing Freelander 2, but it will retain the genes of a Land Rover SUV with JLR quality.
The project was initiated by Carl Peter Forster, former CEO of Tata Motors, and carried forward by Tim Leverton and late Karl Slym.
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