Dubai: As far as test conditions go, featuring in a James Bond movie should be placed right at the top for any vehicle make. They get shot at, have to fend off explosions, defy gravity in making jumps over vast stretches and still land on all four if possible. All this while having to manoeuvre crowded city streets and jagged cliffs at nothing less than 150km per hour.
Many do not make it to tell the tale.
Viewed through that lens, Jaguar Land Rover’s three models — a Range Rover Sport SVR (the fastest Land Rover ever), the Defender and Jaguar C-X75 Concept — which featured in the latest Bond caper ‘Spectre’ have done remarkably well. “JLR’s pretty happy with the results from the vehicles and no arguing the fact that the movie is a great showcase for the brands,” said Bruce Robertson, the regional Managing Director. “And car buyers in these markets always like to see something different.” (Incidentally, the producers of ‘Spectre’ have reportedly run up a bill of £24 million (Dh134.4 million) from all the car crashes that feature are featured in 150-minute flick. And for the record, Bond’s own choice of wheels was an Aston Martin DB10.)
On Monday evening, JLR offered a sneak peek of its Special Operations vehicles in Dubai. “These are not just futuristic concepts — we have every intention of bringing such models into full-scale production at some point,” said Robertson. “That remains the case, absolutely so.”
Currently, the Middle East represents the fourth largest global market for JLR.
