![]() It feels like a less luxurious Range Rover for half the price. Somehow, though, that becomes a virtue, forcing you to slow down and enjoy the refined ride, smooth transmission and imperious driving position. Its calm steering and pliant suspension lead to unseemly body-roll if rushed, and the engine gets gruff when worked hard. It leaves that – somewhat futile – job to other SUVs. The ability to tow a 3,500kg braked trailer should serve all your caravan/horsebox/speedboat needs (delete according to lifestyle), too.īesides, this Land Rover has no pretensions to being sporty. On paper, that looks underwhelming, but a burly 369lb ft of torque from 1,500rpm means you’re rarely short of oomph. I sampled the former, which drives through an eight-speed automatic gearbox, serving up 60mph in a steady-as-she-goes 8.3 seconds. The Landmark comes with Land Rover’s 240hp four-cylinder SD4 or 306hp six-cylinder SD6 diesel engines. Choose the £482 Pet Pack and Rover the retriever (he has to be called Rover, right?) even gets his own partitioned, rubber-lined boot. Inside, you’ll find seven full-sized seats that slide, flip and fold, plus a full suite of audiovisual options to occupy the kids. ![]() Factor in 283mm of ground clearance and 900mm of wading depth and, with the right tyres, it’s almost unstoppable. The Discovery is a motorised Swiss army knife, with all-wheel drive and five modes for tackling tough terrain, backed up by low-range gearing and electronic air suspension. This Landmark edition was launched to mark 30 years of Discovery in 2019. Just delivered: Land Rover Discovery SD4. Even the lop-sided tailgate, so controversial at launch in 2017, no longer seems too contrived. Nonetheless, despite this Landmark edition’s black mesh grille, front foglights, tinted glass and 20-inch alloys, it still looks pleasingly no-nonsense. It’s a tad sleeker than its set-square predecessor and, thanks to an aluminium chassis and body panels, a whopping 480kg lighter. Which brings us to the fifth-generation Discovery. Factor in the new Defender, which uses a new chassis and wins hands-down for cool-factor, and the odds look stacked. Land Rover now builds no less than seven SUVs, and its smaller Discovery Sport outsells the ‘proper’ Discovery by more than two-to-one. Since then, the turf has become much muddier. Those early Discoverys (Discoveries?) occupied a fertile field between agricultural and aspirational, and between the Defender and Range Rover. The factory soon added a third shift to keep up with demand. ![]() It was the right car at the right time, beating the BMW X5 to market by a decade and presaging the rise of the SUV. But it also boasted a Terence Conran interior with seven seats, rugged good looks and unrivalled off-road ability. The first Discovery was built to a budget, with Morris Marina door handles and taillights from an Austin Maestro van. Are we witnessing the last days of Disco? Yet it could prove dire news for the Discovery – Land Rover’s slowest seller – by competing for the same customers. OK, so Land Rover wheeled out a ‘Landmark’ special edition, driven here, but all eyes were on Solihull’s new star: the 2020 Defender.įair enough, you might say: the Defender is an iron-clad institution and, after 67 years on sale, a new one is big news. Last year, the Discovery celebrated its 30th birthday – and almost nobody noticed.
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