Preview image reveals distinctive new light signature
It will be the first of a new range of models to wear JLR’s Freelander badge; global sales on the cards
China’s Chery has confirmed that the first model in its new Freelander brand will be revealed next Tuesday (31 March).
The company – which sells cars in the UK under the Jaecoo, Omoda and eponymous Chery brands – is reviving the Freelander name in collaboration with JLR for a new line of electrified crossovers.
It will use fundamentally the same underpinnings as it uses for its other SUV brands, but the cars will be marked out by a bespoke, JLR-led design language which draws on the original Freelander, produced from 1997-2015. A new official preview image from the brand shows the distinctive front light signature of the first model, which is expected to be a defining feature of the line-up as it expands.
While Freelander models will at first be sold only in the Chinese market, there is “potential for global expansion”, JLR China president Qing Pan said previously.
Chery is developing the Freelander electrified range using an in-house-developed “flexible” platform, Pan said. Autocar has learned that the platform will be Chery’s T1X, which underpins cars from the company’s other brands.
The first model is set to be a plug-in hybrid with a design that blends chunky off-road visual cues with a Porsche Macan-style coupé shape – as imagined below by Autocar, prior to the latest teaser.
It will “echo the original spirit of Freelander but brought up to date to appeal to discerning, technologically savvy Chinese consumers,” Pan said.
The new Freelander will give Chery JLR’s factory a replacement for the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque, production of which will end this year.
It will sit in different market segment from JLR’s imported high-end models in China, such as the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Land Rover Defender.
JLR has said the new Freelander will be sold in a network of its own dedicated, Chery-run dealerships.
Freelander doesn’t come under JLR’s luxury-focused ‘House of Brands’ marketing and sales strategy, which effectively splits Jaguar, Defender, Discovery and Range Rover into as stand-alone brands.
In the UK and mainland Europe, a Chinese-built Freelander could cannibalise sales of the cheaper models based on JLR’s new EMA EV platform, such as the upcoming Velar and Defender Sport. That would make the business case for selling Freelanders in those markets harder to justify.
The Land Rover Freelander was originally launched in 1997 in three-door and five-door forms. It was the first Land Rover with a monocoque platform and “pioneered the compact premium SUV”, said Pan. It lasted for two generations before being replaced by the Discovery Sport in 2015.
