Great, now the Land Rover Discovery SVX is dead, too
As it turns out, when it’s time to tighten the belts, the weird stuff gets axed first.
At the end of January, Land Rover announced that it had canceled the Range Rover SV Coupe, a $295,000 monument to SUV excess, as part of an overall belt-tightening. But that wasn't the only pie-in-the-sky project to get nixed.
Land Rover confirmed to Autocar that there is no V8 slated for the Discovery anymore, and thus, it will not offer the Discovery SVX for sale as it was originally shown.
The premise of the Land Rover Discovery SVX was pretty simple -- take a Disco and make it more. Under the hood went JLR's 5.0-liter supercharged V8, putting out about 518 horsepower and 561 pound-feet of torque. In addition to the stronger engine, the SVX also received modifications to the chassis and suspension that gave it even more off-road cred than it already had. I'm going to miss those orange accents, too.
All is not lost, however. A Land Rover spokesperson told Autocar that the automaker will keep the SVX badge and its theme alive. However, specific models were not mentioned, and neither was a timeline, so we'll have to wait with bated breath until Land Rover is able to build the SVX it wants. Something tells me the upcoming Defender would make a good platform for ultra-rugged off-road modification, but that's just me spitballing.
Things haven't been too pretty for Jaguar Land Rover lately. While it did achieve critical success with the launch of the electric I-Pace , the automaker announced in January that it would lay off approximately 10 percent of its workforce to rein in costs. A looming "no-deal" Brexit could further complicate matters.