It's enough to make you choke on your chapatti - reports coming out of China suggest that Freelanders and Evoques built at the proposed Jaguar Land Rover/Chery joint venture plant in Jiangsu will have Chinese engines.
According to China's Economic Daily News, the Evoque will be marketed in China as the Aurora with a choice of either 1.6 or two-litre petrol power, each an in-house turbocharged Chery design with direct fuel-injection, alongside the more familiar Jaguar Land Rover three-litre V6, which will also be made in China by Chery under licence from the firm's Indian owners.
More than that, the plan is to introduce the Chery engines into more Jaguar Land Rover models, starting with the Freelander and the upcoming Jaguar compact sedan, as well as in a joint-venture brand to be created in China.
HUGE NUMBERS
And they're talking huge numbers, too: the plan is start off with 130 000 vehicles in 2014 - 43 000 Freelanders, 34 000 Evoque/Auroras and 23 000 sedans (either the new compact Jag, the joint venture vehicle, or a combination of both), rising to an eventual full capacity of 250 000 cars a year.
The consensus at IOL is that their quality control will have to be several orders of magnitude above the current Chery levels if they are not merely to devalue the Jaguar and Land Rover brands.