Land Rover to unveil Range Stormer
2003-12-12
Land Rover has announced that a new concept vehicle will be unveiled at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on 5 January 2004.
Named the Range Stormer, this high-performance 4x4 makes its world debut at Detroit, and follows the reveal of a design rendering at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September this year.
Commenting on the new concept, Land Rover's managing director Matthew Taylor, said: "Range Stormer is a modern, striking, high-technology vehicle. It is very much conceived to be an on-road, high performance machine, as well as class-leading off-road like all Land Rovers. Breadth of ability is one of its many strengths."
Land Rover design director, Geoff Upex added: "It is possible to
apply Land Rover design language to a vehicle of totally different proportions
and still make it very obviously a Land Rover. This is what we've done
here, and the result is a Land Rover like nothing that has been seen
before."
Land Rover news release
Land Rover concept car to make US debut
Jan 3 2004
By Steve Pain, Birmingham Post
Two famous Midland motoring companies will make a massive push into America next week as Land Rover unveils its first concept car and Aston Martin wheels out the new DB9 Volante.
The Solihull-based 4x4 manufacturer said yesterday the Range Stormer is a high performance, sports tourer or SUV concept car.
The Stormer will make its first public appearance at the Detroit Motor Show on Monday, when it will go up against a raft of new models from rival manufacturers from Japan, the US and Europe, as well as BMW's highly popular X5 and
Importantly, it also gives a taste of a planned new production model that will enable Land Rover to break into a fresh market segment.
Land Rover managing director Matthew Taylor said: "The production
vehicle that follows will share many of its styling and technical innovations.
It is very much conceived to be an on-road, performance machine, as well
as class-leading off-road."
Geoff Upex, design director at Land Rover, added: "The challenge was to translate fundamental Land Rover design values into a machine that looks powerful, muscular and edgy.
"We certainly want to challenge established views, but the Range
Stormer is still clearly an authentic Land Rover. It has classic Land
Rover design language. Take one look at the vehicle and it's obviously
from Land Rover, and obviously has strong Range Rover genes."
Less traditional Land Rover cues include the low roofline, power bulge in the bonnet and the huge 22-inch forged alloy wheels.
The concept car, which is powered by a specially developed engine based on the Jaguar unit used in the XKR and XJR models, will also act as a showcase for future technologies which may find their way into production at Solihull.
Another major innovation being shown is a system called Terrain Response.
Land Rover claims that this smart and simple-to-use new technology delivers
the best possible on and off-road composure and control by optimising
the entire vehicle set-up, including suspension, powertrain, throttle
response and traction control.
The driver simply selects the appropriate Terrain Response setting from the six available and the vehicle does the rest, using technology that offers a choice of settings for high speed work to extreme off-roading.
Mr Taylor said: "You'll be seeing an increasing amount of innovative technology in future Land Rovers. But technology that makes the driver's task simpler not more complicated."