Land Rover has slashed the
price of three of its models by 14 per cent to try and stave off
competition from Europe and the internet.
The company was among several
UK manufacturers criticised by the European Commission last week for
its high prices.
It has responded to this and
pressure from customers in the car showrooms by announcing an
immediate drop in its prices.
The basic model in the
Freelander range has been reduced by £1,000 to £15,995, and gets an
extra £1,215 of standard equipment. All other models have had their
prices cut by around £1,000.
A new model has been added to
the Discovery range, the E, and will be sold for £21,995 - £3,150
less than the previous cheapest model, while other models are reduced
by up to £2,295.
The Range Rover, the top of
the range model, will have cuts of up to £2,705.
Gavin Green, director of
communications, said the cuts had been announced to make the buying
process more smooth and pleasant.
He said:
“At the moment customers
have been coming in knowing that they can buy the same model for
less on the continent or through a dot com company, but they don’t
want to buy one there.
“They’ve been asking for
discounts and, by and large, getting them.
“We’ve reduced the basic
price now to what the discounted price was.”
Mr Green said that the company
was operating as normal following its £2 billion sale to Ford earlier
this year when BMW sold the Rover Group.
He said that 13,200 employees
were still working for Land Rover and the firm was being run
separately from Ford.
The only staff to have left as
a result of the sale were those who were working for both Rover and
Land Rover, and stayed with the main company.
Mr Green said there were no
plans to merge the Ford and Land Rover brands.
He said:
“There is no way that we
are going to put a land rover badge on a Ford vehicle and pretend
that it is something that it isn’t. Both Ford and Land Rover are
strong brands in their own right.
“There are some synergies
we can have, both the two companies are run separately.”
