CarBrandLogos archive · Land Rover · 2011

Land RoverRange Rover Evoque

A concept car that reached production almost unaltered, and made the brand a fortune.

Photo: Vauxford · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Land Rover history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Land Rover showed the LRX concept in 2008, in the middle of a financial crisis, with Ford selling the company to Tata. It was small, low and dramatically wedge-shaped, with a rising sill line, a roof that fell away to a shallow rear window, and almost no glass. Concepts like that are normally softened out of existence on the way to production. Under design director Gerry McGovern, this one arrived in 2011 looking remarkably like the show car.

2017 Range Rover Evoque HSE 2.0 Front · Vauxford · CC BY-SA 4.0

Design and engineering

Mechanically it was the least Land Rover-ish Range Rover yet: transverse engines, front-wheel drive available, and a size that put it against premium hatchbacks rather than other off-roaders. It was the smallest, lightest and most economical thing the brand had made. Purists complained; buyers did not. It brought in customers who were younger, more urban and far more likely to be female than anything else in the showroom, and for several years it was the volume engine of Jaguar Land Rover's profits.

2017 Range Rover Evoque HSE 2.0 Rear · Vauxford · CC BY-SA 4.0

2011 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque Pure SD4 2.2 Front

In production

A convertible followed in 2016, an unusual thing to build and an unusually short-lived one. The second generation of 2019 moved to a new platform with mild-hybrid and plug-in hybrid options and refined rather than reinvented the shape, on the reasonable grounds that the shape was the product.

2011 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque Pure SD4 2.2 Front · Vauxford · CC BY-SA 4.0

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

2011–present

Technical specification

The Range Rover Evoque, in detail.

Production: July 2011 – present
Class: Subcompact luxury crossover SUV (C)
Layout: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout; Front-engine, front-wheel-drive ; Front-engine, four-wheel-drive layout; Front-engine, all-wheel-drive
Manufacturer: Land Rover Ltd. (2011–2012) ; Jaguar Land Rover (2013–present)

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