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Jaguar Land Rover to spend additional £250 million a year with UK suppliers

JLR to spend and extra £1 billion with UK suppliers The Range Rover Evoque phenomenon continues with Jaguar Land Rover announcing an extra £250 million additional annual spend with UK suppliers. Just last week we had the news that Land Rover’s Freelander 2 had hit sales of 300,000 since its launch in 2007, but if the Range Rover Evoque continues selling the way it has that figure will be eclipsed in half the time by the Evoque. And it’s sales of the Evoque – Land Rover has sold 60,000 Evoques in the first seven months on sale – that’s driving the need to spend more with suppliers and the announcement today that UK suppliers can look forward to an extra £250 million a year being spent to support the Evoque’s production at Halewood.

Demise of kei cars on the horizon?

The kei car has long been a staple of the Japanese automobile industry and its car culture. Too diminutive for Western markets, the tiny cars and trucks are a strong influencer of design in Japan. Now, as The New York Times reports, the Japanese government has hit kei cars with increases in sales tax, gasoline prices and has reduced the kei car tax break introduced to make the cars popular in the first place by 50 percent.

Ferrari P4/5 designer Castriota heads to Saab

Jason Castriota, the noted designer who created the Ferrari P4/5 and the Maserati GranTurismo, is taking his talents to Saab. He will be in charge of design for the Swedish automaker as it looks to develop a new image after being sold by former parent General Motors, Bloomberg News reports. Castriota will work on developing an upscale model of the 9-3 and will try to bolster Saab to better compete with BMW and Audi.