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Jaguar and Land Rover to consolidate dealerships

Jaguar and Land Rover are set to merge their sales facilities, according to Inside Line. Jaguar Land Rover North America President Andy Gross says 45 percent of Jaguar owners also have an SUV in their stable, so it makes sense to give customers as much exposure to the cat's high-riding cousins and possible. The number of overall outlets will remain the same, and the brands will reportedly remain separate on the showroom floor, however.
So far, just one dealer has made the move to combine under the roof of one 68,000 square-foot facility in Paramus, New Jersey (above), though a further 20 are ready to make the shift and become Jaguar Land Rover outlets. Gross believes the shift is necessary so that his company's dealer network will accurately reflect the company's products. We'll see how cozy the brands are when Jaguar starts rolling out its own SUVs in a few years.

New Jaguar crossover to be called 'XQ'?

As part of its upcoming portfolio expansion, Jaguar will be adding two key models to its lineup in the next few years. The first is a small, 3 Series-fighting sedan tentatively called XS, and the other is said to be a new crossover, which may be dubbed XQ, as Edmunds reports. Jaguar filed a trademark application for the name "XQ" with the United States Patent and Trademark Office earlier this year, according to the report.
Jaguar executives have long said that the company is investigating new, higher-volume segments for the brand to compete in, and this certainly isn't the first time we've heard rumors of a CUV with a pouncing cat badge. Edmunds opines that since the Land Rover brand will no doubt continue to tackle the more traditional SUV segments, the Jaguar brand could easily house an offering in the luxury crossover market.
As for how a Jaguar CUV could come to fruition, Edmunds offers two suggestions. The first would be to build a vehicle on the smaller platform that will underpin the XS, as it will accommodate both rear- and all-wheel-drive applications and will be used for a number of differently sized vehicles. The second, more logical suggestion, is that the Jag CUV will ride on a version of the all-aluminum D7u platform used in the Land Rover Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.

Jaguar Land Rover says key models in short supply, some have six-month wait lists

Care for a bit more proof that the Jaguar Land Rover portfolio of vehicles is the best it's ever been? Well, the Indian-owned pair of brands saw a record year in 2013, while 2014 has seen a 14-percent increase in sales. The crazy thing is, though, is that figure could be even higher, provided the company had the production capacity.
JLR is running a six-month waiting list on two of its most popular models, the Range Rover Sport (above) and Range Rover. According to Mark White, the company's chief technologist for body engineering, the blame can be placed on the paint shop at the company's Solihull factory, in the UK.
"We will probably max out the paint shop before we max out the body shop. Putting the second body shop in has given us the flexibility to ebb and flow the different models that go through there and meet the capacity demands we've got," White told Automotive News. "However, you always hit a bottleneck somewhere. And the paint shop is probably going to be the next biggest obstacle."