JLR invests £65m in paint shops to meet demand for personalised luxury vehicles

Automotive giant JLR is investing millions of pounds in new paint facilities at its Castle Bromwich site to help it meet demand for personalised luxury vehicles.

The group says demand for personalised colour options – where customers pick from hundreds of bespoke paint options across its Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models – has more than doubled since 2022.

Meanwhile, JLR says demand for its exclusive Range Rover SV models doubled this financial year.

The group is now investing £65m expanding its paint facilities in the West Midlands and at Nitra in Slovakia.

JLR’s SV Bespoke Paint matching service allows clients to get a Range Rover SV painted in any colour they want – with customers for example matching their new car with the colours of their existing yacht or private jet.

It says: “An SV Bespoke commission typically adds an average of £70,000 on top of the £202,000 average selling price of a Range Rover SV.”

As part of its £41m investment in new Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) facilities at Castle Bromwich, JLR will spend £26m this year to replace existing paint booths.

The company says the new booths use energy-efficient technology and filtration techniques to cut energy and water use, while their automated paint-spraying robots reduce waste by 30 per cent compared to hand painting methods.

JLR will also this year build a £10m universal paint line at its plant in Nitra, Slovakia, where Defender and Discovery are manufactured.

The project will include new electric curing ovens, as the company bids to cut its CO2 emissions, and will help create 120 new jobs in the country.

Paint shops are one of the most energy-intensive parts of car manufacturing, with JLR saying they account for 80 per cent of the automotive industry’s operational emissions globally.

Andrea Debbane, JLR’s chief sustainability officer, said: “JLR is seeing a significant increase in clients wanting to personalise their vehicles, so we are preparing to expand our facilities and offer thousands more paint options across our brands, but doing so in the most sustainable and efficient way possible.

“Paint shops are very energy intensive, accounting for around 80% of our operational emissions, so they represent our biggest opportunity.

“Our long history means we have facilities with different challenges, some are newer, some much older so we need to optimise where we can, whilst at the same time investing for the long-term so we can get where we need to be in ten, fifteen, twenty years' time to reach our net zero goal.”

Jamal Hameedi, director for SVO, said “SVO is all about offering our clients unparalleled performance, luxury and capability.

“That includes the most exclusive, high quality colour finishes available.

“Range Rover clients are increasingly choosing to tailor their vehicles with more exclusive Bespoke and elevated palette paints.

“By increasing our capacity we can satisfy the demand growth from our Range Rover clients and also expand this service for the first time to clients of our other brands.”