The next Land Rover Freelander will be called Discovery Sport

Land Rover yesterday issued a press release announcing the final name that the first member of the new Discovery family will adopt. The veteran off-roader will soon share its name with other models that will complement it both above and below it in the range. The release confirms that the new generation of the Freelander will debut this change of nomenclature and will be known as Discovery Sport.

According to the British manufacturer, its ambitious mission will be to become the most capable and versatile compact SUV in its segment when it goes on sale in 2015. Its design will be inspired by the Discovery Vision Concept that Land Rover presented to the public at the recent New York Motor Show, just as the other future models bearing the Discovery name will be.

The Discovery Sport will be produced at the Halewood plant, which also built the Freelander and currently builds the Range Rover Evoque. The introduction of the new SUV has created 250 new jobs at the facilities, bringing its workforce, which had already increased several times in recent years due to high demand for the Evoque, to a total of 4,750 employees.

Land Rover has invested 200 million pounds (just over 250 million euros) in upgrading the plant with new presses and robots to enable production of the new model. Adding this sum to the brand’s earlier investments in Halewood, the total comes to nearly 500 million pounds over the last four years.

Source | Land Rover