Jaguar Land Rover wants more dual-brand stores
New N.J. store shows consolidation standard
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Editor's note: An earlier version of this story provided an incorrect figure for the percentage of Jaguar and Land Rover franchises in combined Jaguar Land Rover stores and mistakenly referred to those franchises as dealerships.
PARAMUS, N.J. -- Jaguar Land Rover is pushing its single-point dealers to consolidate through buy/sells and create more stores that combine the two British luxury franchises.
Only by offering passenger cars, SUVs and crossovers under one rooftop can the two brands compete effectively with their German rivals, said Andy Goss, CEO of Jaguar Land Rover North America.
Within three years, about 70 percent of Jaguar and Land Rover franchises in the United States will be in combined Jaguar Land Rover stores, he said. As of Sept. 30, 55 percent of Jaguar and Land Rover franchises were in combined Jaguar Land Rover stores.
There are 166 Jaguar franchises and 167 Land Rover franchises in the country and 92 combined Jaguar Land Rover stores.
Twenty-two consolidation deals are now in the works, but Goss could not give a timetable for their completion.
"They will all pan out," he said. "There is only one future, Jaguar Land Rover."
The program is voluntary. Jaguar Land Rover is not forcing consolidations, but it is encouraging dealers.
 | North America CEO Andy Goss said of consolidation: “There is only one future, Jaguar Land Rover.” |
Goss said the company also may form one dealer council for the two brands.
He spoke here at the grand opening of the 68,000-square-foot Prestige Jaguar Land Rover Paramus, which has separate showrooms for Jaguar and Land Rover under one roof.
The store is the highest volume Land Rover dealership in the United States, having sold 1,456 new units last year in the old 13,000-square-foot store next door. Prestige Auto Group, which owns the dealership, acquired a nearby Jaguar store and combined the franchises at one location. Prestige is No. 39 on the Automotive News list of the top 125 dealership groups in the nation ranked on 2011 new-vehicle retail sales units.
Most of the design elements for the new store came from Jaguar Land Rover, said Prestige Auto Vice President Bill Berardino. The building has a Jaguar tower at one end and a Land Rover tower at the other. The service area is shared.
The store has key elements of a new dealership standard for the combined brands, including the towers and a common entrance, which will be completed this fall and rolled out before year end.
The store's grand opening was attended by executives from Jaguar Land Rover's United Kingdom headquarters and Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors, which bought the two brands from Ford Motor Co. in 2008.
"This dealership is a fresh look at how cars can be retailed," Tata said. "This is a very successful implementation of a dealership, maybe the way things will have to be in the next few years."
Prestige, which also owns Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Mini, Lexus and Toyota stores in New Jersey, built the Paramus store because of confidence in the new ownership, Berardino said. "We are really positive on the two brands now," he said. "Tata gets involved."
The combined U.S. sales of Jaguar and Land Rover rose 18 percent through September to 41,224 vehicles. For all of 2011, the two brands sold 50,375 units.
Goss said the U.S. arm is targeting sales of 100,000 units in "the next few years."
He said the move to dual stores takes time because most dealers don't want to sell. Retailers often want to add the brand they don't have, Goss said.
San Francisco, Chicago and Colorado are target markets for the dual stores.
Goss said: "They are large markets, and it just has to happen."
You can reach Diana T. Kurylko at dkurylko@crain.com. -- Follow Diana on 
