Land Rover has given us our first peek at a brand new member of its Range Rover family, ahead of the SUV’s full reveal on March 1.
The newcomer will be called the Range Rover Velar and it’ll fill the gap between the compact Evoque and the larger Range Rover Sport, and its most direct rivals are likely to be the Porsche Macan and JLR’s own Jaguar F-Pace.
Land Rover’s design boss Gerry McGovern said that the Velar brings “a new dimension of glamour, modernity and elegance” to the brand, but the company hasn’t released any concrete details about the new entrant. Expect it to offer the latest array of Ingenium four-cylinder turbocharged petrol and diesel engines as well as the firm’s supercharged V6.
We’ll also have to wait until the beginning of next month to see the full design as the images released by Land Rover only show the rear end, roof line and a bit of the interior. Compared to its Rangie siblings, the Velar has a more pronounced shoulder line that sweeps into the boot lip and the sloping tailgate angle suggests that they’re going to refer to it a cross-coupé of sorts.
But what does Velar mean? That name’s been taken from the early disguised Range Rover prototypes of 1969, with Velar having been derived from the Latin word ‘velare’, which means to veil or cover.