Range Rover Evoque Convertible NOT going in to production. Thankfully.

It seems Land Rover is having second thoughts about making the Range Rover Evoque Convertible – shown at Geneva 2012 – in to a production model.

Just about everything Land Rover and Jaguar have done in the last few years has been so right that they are now reporting record sales, and spawning new models as quickly as they can to keep the impetus going.

But the one model we really couldn’t find a lot of positives in was the Range Rover Evoque Convertible – which arrived as a concept at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show – looking like the ultimate statement of Chav central for Tango’d ‘Ladies’ who lunch, from Brentwood via Surrey and up to Cheshire.

We understood Land Rover’s impetus – they thought there’d be a market for a drop-top Evoque – but it really was a step too far for Land Rover to go. It’s one thing producing ‘Lifestyle’ cars to extend their market reach, but quite another to produce an Evoque that substitutes its main USP – the dramatic styling, in particular the roof – and replaces it with a USP that places it alongside the Murano Convertible in the ‘Why would anyone buy one?’ category.

Thankfully, Car & Driver are now reporting that Land Rover have had second thoughts about the Evoque Convertible and are going to leave it as a concept. Good move.

Hopefully Land Rover will now spend the money they would have spent on taking the Evoque Convertible in to production on producing more appealing versions of the Evoque instead.

A Range Rover Evoque Sport with the new 3.0 litre V6 Supercharged engine would come near the top of our wish list, as would a stretched ‘Grand Evoque‘ that got a set of occasional seats at the back just like the new Range Rover Sport – a 5+2 seating option.

Oh, and one other titbit from C&D is that the Victoria Beckham Evoque – revealed last year and with 200 being built at £80k each – still hasn’t sold out.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with how it looks – it’s actually a decent effort – but at £80k it’s competing with the current batch of ‘customised’ Evoques from the likes of Kahn and Overfinch which, although equally expensive, have more cachet for the type of people who buy them as they shout their customisation far louder than the Beckham Evoque does.

So if Land Rover are going to use Mrs Beckham’s moniker again it looks like they’ll have to make sure the car shouts the customisation and cost a lot louder.

Perhaps they could replace the ‘R A N G E  R O V E R’ letters on the bonnet with the price?