[Auto] Land Rover Range Rover review

[Mr.Talha]

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/land-rover/range-rover

 

 

While the new Land Rover Defender was a product transformed and the latest Land Rover Discovery went a bit on-piste compared with its predecessor, what we have here is the same luxury-car-meets-SUV – the sort of model the Range Rover helped to define – only more so. More luxury, more refinement, more size. More technology? More price? Put it this way: “Alexa, how much is this new Range Rover I’m sitting in?” 

Some background, then. The new Range Rover can be had in short or long-wheelbase forms, and both are larger than the versions they replace.

It rides on a new platform called MLA Flex, 80% aluminium but with a steel bulkhead at the front. There are rings of strengthening steel, too, around the lower body at the A-pillar section, and the whole body at the C-pillars and D-pillars, plus around the edges of the front-door apertures. Static torsional rigidity is said to be 33kN per degree – up to 50% better than previoulsy.

The Range Rover was a big car before and remains one now. The standard-wheelbase version is 5052mm long, up 75mm on the last one, with a 2997mm wheelbase, while the long-wheelbase variant adds another 200mm to those totals. The Bentley Bentayga is 5141mm long, the BMW X7 5151mm. The Range Rover is also wide, at 2209mm across the body – seemingly the same width as across its door mirrors.

Most Range Rovers will be five-seaters, but the LWB can be had with an additional row of seats to make seven, or fancy versions can have just four – perhaps with a motorised fold-out table if in LWB form. 

The Range Rover is immediately available as an SV variant from Jaguar Land Rover's SVO division with these kinds of interior features, so you really can spend as much as you like.

 

 

Exploring the Range Rover line-up
The line-up is comprehensive at launch and will rapidly become more so. Engines are mild-hybrid petrols badged P360 and P400, those numbers referencing horsepower; mild-hybrid diesels called D250, D300 and D350; a V8 petrol (P530); and two petrol-electric plug-in hybrids, the P440e and P510e. A fully electric variant is coming in 2024. 

An eight-speed ZF torque-converter automatic gearbox is mated to them all, with a low-range transfer box to aid the off-road capability I will come back to.

The Range Rover rides exclusively on air springs, with no coil option; can raise itself by up to 135mm for off-roading and lower itself by 50mm to ease entry; and has 48V active anti-roll bars, with software that reads the sat-nav to know when corners are coming up and adjust them accordingly. 

Suspension is by double wishbones at the front and a five-link at the rear, with torque-vectoring by braking and an electronically controlled limited-slip differential at the rear as standard. 

There’s also standard active all-wheel steering, with up to 7.3deg of opposing action at low speeds, giving an 11.37- metre turning circle wall to wall – the tightest of any Land Rover and about the same as the Volkswagen Golf’s.