Jaguar Land Rover bets big on Korea

One of the highlights at this year’s Seoul Motor Show may be the presentation by Jaguar’s design director Ian Callum for the long-anticipated F-Type roadster.

In his first visit to Korea, the legendary car designer, 59, personally unveiled the two-seat F-Type, the first sports car made by the British luxury brand since the 1970s.

“It’s a true breakthrough product for Jaguar. It marks our return to the sports car market,” he said of the F-Type, which will go on sale globally this summer.

In order to build a successor to its last sports car E-Type, which is still at the top of many lists of “most beautiful cars,” Jaguar went back to its basic design values ― beauty of line and purity of form, the designer said. 

“No design project has given me greater pleasure than the creation of the F-Type. It’s a project I’ve looked forward to from the moment I joined Jaguar,” he said, responding to the car’s winning of the 2013 World Car Design of the Year announced on Thursday in New York.

The new convertible has a soft top that can be raised or lowered in 12 seconds at speeds of up to 48 kilometers per hour.

The all-aluminum vehicle, weighing only 1,597 kilograms, comes in two engines: a 3-liter V6 generating 340 or 380 horsepower and a 5-liter V8 boasting 495 horsepower.

Jaguar Land Rover is pinning high hopes on the newly launched All New Range Rover that is also on display during the Seoul Motor Show.

Even though it embraces the traditional Range Rover look, the new premium SUV features all-new upgrades to better drive off-road.

The all-wheel drive system, which used to have five settings to adjust for general conditions ― grass/gravel/snow, mud/ruts, sand and rock crawl ― now has a new automatic mode that uses sensors to automatically select the optimum mode.

The Range Rover also comes equipped with a panoply of assists: hill descent control, hill start assist, stability and traction control and roll stability control.

With the new launches, Jaguar Land Rover aims to further expand its presence in Korea, which is already the seventh-largest market globally. For the XJ limousine, Korea is the fourth largest.

David McIntyre, managing director of its Korean unit, hopes the two brands become “the next trend” in the nation’s imported car market where German players are still dominant.

“In the U.K., they didn’t realize there was this much potential in Korea. But now focus is very much on this market,” the CEO said. “Korea is a big market and more importantly, it’s still growing.”

Jaguar Land Rover sold a record 3,113 cars here last year, with the Jaguar and Land Rover brands posting 17.8 percent and 38.5 percent sales growth, respectively, compared to 2011.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)