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The UK car maker is planning to upgrade its paint facilities at two factories in the UK and Slovakia amid increased demand from luxury clients.
Bespoke customisation has become a key priority for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) as it targets high-end customers with a £65 million ($AU129 million) investment in upgraded paint facilities.
According to the UK marque, the multi-million dollar cash injection will see the introduction of new equipment such as paint booths, a "universal paint line" and electric ovens it claims "will avoid around 500 tonnes of C02e [emissions] per year".
The revamped bespoke paint services will apply to the brand's two factories in Castle Bromwich, West Midlands and Nitra, Slovakia, with the investment expected to “support 17,000 additional clients per year”.
The car maker said demand for bespoke paint options across the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models has "more than doubled since FY [Financial Year] 2022".
On average, the personalised paint options add £70,000 ($AU140,000) on top of the Range Rover SV's starting price, which is $395,655 before on-road costs in Australia, as per JLR.
“Range Rover clients are increasingly choosing to tailor their vehicles with more exclusive bespoke and elevated paint palettes,” Jamal Hameedi, director of special vehicle operations at JLR, said in a media statement.
“By increasing our capacity, we can satisfy the demand growth from our Range Rover clients and also expand this service for the first time to clients of our other brands,” he added.
As previously reported by Drive, the first fully electric Range Rover has been confirmed for an Australian arrival. However, a spokesperson for the brand said, “The start of sales date for Australian customers will be announced once testing is complete and the vehicle is officially launched.”
For reference, the 8651 combined sales of Jaguar (741) and Land Rover (7910) last year, are significantly dwarfed by other stand-alone rivals like Audi (15,333), BMW (26,341) and Mercedes-Benz (18,989).
Ethan Cardinal graduated with a Journalism degree in 2020 from La Trobe University and has been working in the fashion industry as a freelance writer prior to joining Drive in 2023. Ethan greatly enjoys investigating and reporting on the cross sections between automotive, lifestyle and culture. Ethan relishes the opportunity to explore how deep cars are intertwined within different industries and how they could affect both casual readers and car enthusiasts.
