Land Rover cuts short Christmas break to cope with demand

Land Rover workforce back early from Christmas

After a boom year for sales at Land Rover, workers have been brought back from their Christmas New Year break early to cope with demand.

2011 has been a remarkable year for Land Rover.

Perhaps the greatest achievement is to take the underpinnings of the Freelander 2 – a good car, but not the top of the list for fashion-conscious buyers – and turn it in to the style icon that is the Range Rover Evoque. Sales of 18,000 Evoques even before the Evoque launched is impressive, and it appears sales are continuing to rise strongly.

Which goes some way to explaining why the sacred two week Christmas break enjoyed by so many UK workers has had to be cut short at Land Rover. Not by much, admittedly, but the workforce at Solihull were back at work yesterday, instead of on 3rd January, to try and get everything buzzing for the New Year.

And buzz they will, with an increase in the workforce of 1,000 planned for 2012, taking the workforce at Solihull to 5,500. But the growth at Land Rover has not just been on the back of Evoque sales, the rest of the Land Rover range is selling strongly. JLR spokesman, Nick O’Donnell, said:

We have seen strong growth in emerging markets such as China, Russia, India etc. In the year to the end of November, we have seen Range Rover up by 27.4 per cent, Range Rover Sport by 18.9 per cent, Discovery by 16.5 per cent and the Defender by 10.1 per cent.

All of which augers well for 2012, even with a slow-down in sales expected as new Land Rover models on the horizon start to dampen sales of the current range. Except the Range Rover Evoque, of course.