A New EV? - Land Rover Applies For "Road Rover" Name Trademark

"Road Rover" is such a terrible name. There has been a lot of speculation about this product. One was that it would essentially be an all-road Jaguar XF station wagon, which would be a horrifically wrong product. Another was that it was a Range Rover sedan, but I doubt that. Another was that it would be a Range Rover without any off-road capacity with the AWD biased 100% toward on-road performance. The question is whether Land Rover/Range Rover needs yet another crossover product and aside from electrification, the answer is no. Electrification could result in new models that replace some of the amount of overlap in the LRRR world. It would not surprise me if this is LRRR's attempt to keep more "Roewe" and "Land Wind" idiocy from happening.

Nothing beats Land Cruiser.

Land Cruiser is a Land Rover with quality, durability, and reliability built in.

Toyota should have made Land Cruiser a dedicated premium brand to sell real SUVs at Lexus dealers.

You make the dumbest suggestions.

It's actually a brilliant suggestion. Land Cruiser is already a series of vehicles and the name is as iconic as Jeep, yet they are buried as Toyotas.

@MD What do you mean? The Land Cruiser and Land Cruiser Prado are already sold at Lexus dealers as the LX570 and GX460. Would they have a Land Cruiser area and these products would be sold there like a separate brand?

@CC You are PROFOUNDLY missing the marketing advantage of using Land Cruiser as a brand. You're not stupid, so why play dumb?

Why would you assume that if my suggestion happened that Lexus would still sell a GX and an LX when they would OBVIOUSLY not do so with Land Cruiser branded models on the same showroom floor?

The GX sells OK-ish at fire-sale prices and the LX is dead in the water for sales, but this is due to two specific issues (1) they are antiquated (both are more than two decades old under the sheet metal) and (2) they have ZERO image status. Everyone knows they are true Lexus products given that they are Toyotas with lipstick and pearls. True Land Cruiser fans are not thrilled the softening of the Land Cruisers.

But what can true Land Cruiser fans do? That's right: NOTHING because Toyota has squandered the name.

By leveraging the well-known rugged aura of the Land Cruisers, Toyota would be able to sell them more effectively against Jeep and Land Rover on the lower end and could flirt with the chic status of the Range Rover and Mercedes Gwagen on the higher end. Right now, Toyota does not compete effectively against the brands and the model named because they are choosing not to use the Land Cruiser's panache.

Given the prices these vehicles command, co-branding them with Lexus makes tremendous sense. Because Lexus still has that old-people, cushy-smushy aura they are trying to shed, and the GX and LX are simply too agricultural to be truly Lexus refined.

Ford is coming hard-core with the Bronco. Can you not see that the Bronco will trade easily in the premium price segments as jeep easily does with the Grand Cherokee and Wrangler? Can't we envision a Bronco King Ranch and a Bronco Raptor in addition to the Platinum model?

We all know Jeep is on fire.

So that leaves Toyota sputtering along with a goldmine of a name to leverage and not using it effectively.

@MD I had assumed they would not be Lexus products anymore, but I was not clear. Lexus should have X5/Range Rover type SUV's, not the agricultural variety as per your point. And yes there could be a range in each model, stretching from the affordable-ish to the more luxurious. BTW in Canada, you can only get a Land Cruiser by special order. They are not part of the normal product line.