JLR invests £20 million in Special Ops

JaguarLandRover (JLR) has chosen Prologis Park, Ryton, Coventry for its £20 million Special Vehicle Operations Technical Centre. 

The facility will be JLR’s global centre to create high-end luxury bespoke commissions and extreme performance vehicles. 

Operations will begin before the year end when a team of 150 JLR specialists will be based at Ryton.  Some 100 of these highly-skilled engineering and technician jobs will be new. 

JLR will invest £20 million to install specialist equipment and a customer commissioning suite.

The Tech Centre is part of the JLR’s Special Operations, created in June under the leadership of John Edwards to focus on meeting the increasing expectations of today's most discerning and enthusiastic Jaguar and Land Rover customers. 

Unique facilities will include a VIP customer commissioning suite for bespoke services and premium vehicle personalisation, as well as Formula 1-inspired flexible workshops and a specialist paint studio.

Managing director of JLR Special Ops, John Edwards, said “We are excited by the capability and potential that this new facility will give us.  We will be creating truly iconic vehicles that reinforce the global reputation of both Jaguar and Land Rover brands as we expand our product portfolio and fulfil our ambitious plans.”  

The JLR Special Ops team will create high luxury, individually-tailored “halo” vehicles.  The location will complement Jaguar Land Rover’s engineering, design and testing facilities at Whitley and Gaydon, as well as the new Jaguar Heritage workshop at Browns Lane, Coventry and the company’s advanced manufacturing facilities.   

The first vehicle to roll out of the new SVO workshop will be the Jaguar F-Type Project 7 (above), the most powerful and fastest production Jaguar to date.  This is an exclusive product, with just 250 models being made available worldwide. 

Each F-Type Project 7 will start life at the company’s plant in Castle Bromwich, before transferring to the Special Ops Tech Centre to complete the build by hand. Castle Bromwich is the company's site of excellence in terms of aluminium bonding and mechanical joining. It is the site with most experience in these technologies including welding.

JLR claims it is on course to invest in 50 new product actions over the next five years.  This includes £1.5 billion to introduce the all-new, technically-advanced aluminium vehicle architecture in forthcoming models, beginning with the Jaguar XE premium sedan to be manufactured from 2015 at the company's Solihull facility. 

The new Land Rover Discovery Sport, which goes on sale in 2015, will be the most versatile and capable vehicle in the compact SUV segment.  It is the first member of an all-new family of Discovery vehicles, inspired by the Discovery Vision Concept which was showcased at the New York International Auto Show in April 2014.