Jaguar Hunts for Traction in Chelsea and Beyond

By JONATHAN SCHULTZ

“It really all started with the synthetic ice,” David Pryor, standing on a sun-baked patch of pavement adjacent to the High Line, said on Wednesday. Minutes before, the brand vice president for Jaguar North America had overseen a blizzard in a geodesic dome built here, on 10th Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets.

Jaguar Land Rover's most recent promotional footprint in Chelsea - it built a mud-strewn off-road course on the same site in March to commemorate Land Rover's 25th anniversary in the United States - measures roughly half a block. Its centerpiece, a life-size snow globe covered in transparent plastic, shelters a skating surface, also made of plastic, which is covered in an oil-based glide enhancer that simulates the dynamics of ice. “One of our vendors told us about this stuff, and that led us to think about a snow globe,” Mr. Pryor said.

Inaugurating a winter wonderland on an 86-degree day in Manha ttan may seem an unorthodox way to differentiate oneself in an American luxury market dominated by BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Lexus. But Jaguar, which orchestrated a loose, convivial social-media campaign around the Jaguar story arc in the fifth season of AMC's “Mad Men” earlier this year, sees strength in small gestures.

“We don't have their marketing budgets, so we've got to be disruptive,” Mr. Pryor said. “We have to use our size to our advantage.”

The snow globe, in which four rafter-mounted blowers were calibrated to generate artificial flurries from Thursday through Saturday, was built to promote a new all-wheel-drive system coming to the 2013 XJ sedan in December and XF sedan in January. The system came from Magna, the Canada-based automotive components supplier, and was designed by Haldex, a leader in all-wheel-drive systems for luxury vehicles, said Stuart Schorr, vice president for communications at Jaguar Land Rover North America.

O nly sedans equipped with the automaker's new 3-liter, 340-horsepower V-6 engine will be offered with the all-wheel-drive system, which Mr. Schorr said would command “about a $3,000 premium.” Mr. Schorr emphasized that the cost would not dilute the price advantage of the V-6 models over their V-8 equivalents. (The XJ and XF were previously available only with V-8 engines.)

Lacking an all-wheel-drive option has been a nagging liability for the brand, Mr. Schorr said. “About 7 percent of the luxury sedan market is rear-drive V-8s, and the XJ dominates that,” he said. “But that's only 7 percent. Customers always ask, ‘You have all-wheel drive, right?' And for a long time we've had to say, ‘Well, no, we don't, actually.'” The last Jaguar to offer all-wheel drive was the much-maligned but strong-selling X-Type, discontinued in 2009 and largely composed of systems from Ford, Jaguar's owner until 2008, when it was sold to the Tata Group of India.

Jaguar g reen-lighted an all-wheel-drive system specifically with the American market in mind. The automaker expects 75 percent of models so equipped to be sold in the United States, with northerly markets like Germany and Russia claiming the remainder. The system will not be offered in Britain, the brand's ancestral home, Mr. Schorr said.

Under the dome, a brief press conference was held at noon. A brick-red 2013 XJ 3.0 All Wheel Drive was driven onto the synthetic ice and greeted by Andy Goss, president of Jaguar Land Rover North America, and the figure skater Johnny Weir, wearing a silver-sequined blazer, black shorts and a wink. From the back seat emerged Jane Krakowski and Tracy Morgan of NBC's “30 Rock.”

Mr. Morgan, a self-described Jaguar “nut” who has owned 10 cars from the brand, was in a reflective mood.

“My first check from ‘Saturday Night Live,' I bought a lime green Jaguar, man, and I put the spinners - you know, the wheels with the spinny t hings? - on it,” he said. “Man, it was sweet.”

The Jaguar Chill NY space, as the snow-globe site is called, is open to the public on 10th Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets on Thursday until 8 p.m; Friday 12 to 8 p.m; and Saturday 12 to 5 p.m. Click here for a programming guide.