October 17th could go down in history as a turning point for the Land Rover brand. Today, the Halewood factory has assembled the first example of the all-new Discovery Sport SUV model, which stands a good chance of becoming their best seller and also replacing the awkward-looking Freelander 2. Heralded as the "the world's most versatile and capable premium compact SUV", this 4x4 will soon go on sale in 170 global markets.
The very first example will not go into a Land Rover dealership. Instead, it's destined to be used by global partner Virgin Galactic to support there operations base and those awesome commercial space flights they have planned.
During the celebrations organized at the factory, the keys were handed over to Stephen Attenborough, Commercial Director of Virgin Galactic. It's the first of many, as Land Rover themselves admit.
“It fills me with pride to have seen the first new Discovery Sport coming off the line here at our world-class Halewood production facility. We are now even more excited to hand the keys over to the crew at Virgin Galactic. The new car embodies Land Rover’s spirit of Above and Beyond, so it’s fitting that it will be used by a similarly pioneering company in Virgin Galactic,” said Murray Dietsch, Director of Land Rover Programs.
Built on a brand new aluminum platform, the Discovery Sport will be weaponized by brand new Ingenium engines in its fight against the BMW X3 and Mercedes GLK. Over a period of two years, it has been tested everywhere from the Nurburgring track to the deserts of the Middle East and a frozen lake in northern Sweden.
The Halewood factory, is located near Liverpool and is also the home of the Evoque. Since this have become increasingly popular, the assembly lines are currently running 24 hours straight, one of the busiest in all of Britain.
Halewood was originally opened by Ford Motor Company on October 1963, to build the then Anglia. Later on, Jaguar took over and started putting X-Types together. In 2005, Land Rover began preparation to take over the facility and started production year later with the Freelander 2, which is still made there. To this day, Halewood has made over 400,000 units of the Freelander 2.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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