Luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover is set to unveil an all-new model next week - the fourth member of the Range Rover family.

The wraps will come off the new Velar on March 1 but in the run-up to the big unveiling Land Rover has released teaser images of the new vehicle.

The Velar is being launched to fill the gap between the Evoque and Sport models in the Range Rover line-up.

The origin of the Velar name - pronounced 'vel-ar' - dates back to the first Range Rover prototypes of the 1960s.

When development engineers needed to hide the true identity of the 26 pre-production Range Rovers, they chose the name Velar, derived from the Latin velaris which means to veil or cover.

First look at the new Range Rover Velar
First look at the new Range Rover Velar

Land Rover's chief design officer Gerry McGovern said: "We call the Velar the avant garde Range Rover.

"It brings a new dimension of glamour, modernity and elegance to the brand. The Range Rover Velar changes everything."

Speculation about the expansion of the Range Rover family began back in 2015 with suggestions a longer and larger version of the Evoque might be in the pipeline.

Initially dubbed the 'Evoque XL', the Velar will compete against the likes of the Porsche Macan.

In 2014, Land Rover announced it would be developing three distinct families of vehicles going forward - Range Rover, Discovery and Defender.

The Discovery Sport, which replaced the Freelander, was launched at the end of 2014 and in September last year an all-new Discovery was unveiled.

It recently had its global launch and is set to hit showrooms in the coming months.

The new Discovery will be built at the car maker's Solihull plant but no details have as yet been revealed for the location of Velar production.

It could be produced at the firm's Halewood factory, in Merseyside, alongside the Evoque and Discovery Sport but if it shares the same platform as the Jaguar F-Pace SUV then production could take place at the Lode Lane plant in Solihull.

The Range Rover family of cars
The Range Rover family of cars

Land Rover has yet to unveil plans for the replacement for the current Defender model, production of which came to an end in Solihull a year ago.

It is thought a Defender successor could be built in a new facility as part of Jaguar Land Rover's expanding operations at Whitley in Coventry.

Automotive analysts have indicated any addition to the Range Rover family would be a hit and follow in the wake of the runaway success of the Evoque, which became Jaguar Land Rover's best-selling model globally.