If Milton had owned a Land Rover he’d never have vanquished Satan and his fallen angels to nether regions of rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death.
If Milton had owned a Land Rover he’d never have vanquished Satan and his fallen angels to nether regions of rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death. He’d have known that they could have had too much fun with the right wheels, as I did recently among the rocks, lakes, fens etc. of the 54,000 acre Roxburgh estate. Along with, I should add, 679 other motoring hacks, between 60 to 80 Land Rover staff and 80 vehicles.
Car launches vary from the exotic — Land Rover in Argentina, Bentley in Venice — to the domestic — Renault in the Stockholm suburbs, Citroën in Slough — but in choosing Walter Scott’s border country Land Rover scored a winner. Even after seven weeks of journalistic depredations, those green valleys and moorland tops remained beautiful and welcoming (as, even more creditably, did the excellent Roxburgh Hotel).
Extravagant, perhaps, given factory closures and the fact that both models are improved versions of what we’ve got already. But if you’ve spent millions on development you have to spend a bit on selling them, and in drawing attention to what you can do with these motors on anything from riverbeds to precipitous inclines to 0–100–0 on tarmac, Land Rover made a point that bears repetition: there’s nothing else quite like a Land Rover.
We were launching the new Discovery 4 and Range Rover Sport. In the five years since its birth the big box Discovery has proved highly popular, partly because it’s more reliable than its predecessor (the Highways Agency is only now auctioning its 175,000-milers). Discovery 4 has a 3-litre version of the original 2.7 diesel V6 with increased power and about a third more torque and decreased fuel consumption and emissions. That, plus a 140kg weight loss, means more low-rev torque off-road and more confident overtaking on motorways.
Externally, the car has a less confrontational front-end with a horizontal rather than vertical emphasis, and new lamps. Internally, the console is softened and simplified, better integrated into the improved wood and leather surrounds. It is also less cluttered, with one-third fewer controls but the same cavernous seven-seater space and even more comfort. With a trailer stability system and a camera that shows where you’re putting your tow-hitch, it’s the perfect Pony Club tug. You might even cram an extra pony in the back. At £47,695 for the HSE it’s no cheapie, though £31,000 will get you an entry-level GS model with the original 2.7 engine.
I was a doubter when the Range Rover Sport was introduced in 2005: surely you want the big beast, one of the kings of the road, not a cheaper, smaller, go-faster minor royal? But once again my marketing insight proved lamentable: its quality, price and less obvious Chelsea-tractor presence won new buyers and it became the company’s 2007 best-seller. Yet still I doubted this new model, despite external and internal improvements similar to the Discovery’s, the same diesel upgrade and the awesomely enhanced 5-litre petrol V8.
Until I drove it. It is a superbly comfortable and capable performance car, in which (in V8 form) we did an exhilarating 0–100–0 mph in 15.9 seconds and 400 metres. Try it on your front drive and I guarantee it will bring a smile to your face. Then it forded the Tweed and took us rock-climbing.
The diesel HSE will set you back £50,695 and the V8 around £57,000. Both models benefit from electronic and suspension improvements which not only improve on-road performance but mean that off-road all you really have to do is point the thing. No gear-changing, no diff-locking, no braking, no skidding. No fun, therefore? Don’t you believe it.
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