ECONOMY

Land Rover in the Indian market

06-29-2009 | AFP

Panama Star Six models -- three each from Jaguar and Land Rover -- will be sold from Monday in India, which is amongst the world's fastest-growing global automobile markets.

"This launch ushers in a new breed of vehicles in India, which had been disconnected with consumers here for some years," Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, told a news conference in Mumbai.

The Jaguar range includes the XF, XFR and XKR models while the Land Rover brands coming to India will be Rover Discovery 3, Range Rover Sport and the basic Range Rover.

All models will sell for between 6.3 million rupees (about 131,000 dollars) and 9.2 million rupees at a new purpose-built showroom in Mumbai.

"The Jaguar and Land Rover cars had been condemned in the downturn (but) they are terrific brands," Tata said.

Senior Jaguar and Land Rover executives were reluctant to divulge how many cars they expected to sell in India, where the luxury car market already includes rivals like Italy's Porsche, Germany's BMW, Mercedes and Audi. "India's premium car market is small but with a huge potential," said Land Rover Managing Director Phil Popham.