Motoring
King of the off road
Alan Judd
Everyone notices a Range Rover. Vil- lains escape in red saloons or blue hatch- backs but witnesses are never vague about Range Rovers; if it was one, they know it. Having spent the past week with a new swimming-pool blue 4.6 HSE (£48,500-odd on the road), I can testify to its having what you might call power of arrival. 'That's another £100,000 on the price,' said the lady whose house I wanted to buy, as the Range Rover crunched the gravel drive. I should have offered the car in part exchange but by then, I'm afraid, I'd come to like it.
It's a good-looker, better by far than any of its rivals — including Toyota's presti- gious Landcruiser — and its more rounded edges disguise the fact that it's actually larger than the old-style Range Rover, now termed Classic. The interior of this top-of- the-range model (you can trouser a less luxurious version for as little as £35,655) was comfortable and well set out, with more room than I'd thought and leather seats that should delight the back-sufferer. It passed the hat test and my racehorse trainer neighbour gave it full marks in his rigorous wine glass test — the bulky dash- board has a flat surface deep enough to accommodate an alarming number of sam- ples (unlike the S class Mercedes, whose sloping dash failed at the first glass).
The durable V8 engine, which in various forms Rover have been using for 20 years, performed so discreetly that it was easy to forget it was there, until overtaking reminded me that the makers claim 0-60 mph in 9.3 seconds and a top speed of 125 mph, impressive for this shape, size and weight. A combined urban/extra urban con- sumption figure of 17.4 mpg is also pretty good by old-style Range Rover standards, though if you're shelling out 48 grand and still feel you have to ask, you can't afford it. The throttle has a long travel and, even with the unobtrusive automatic gearbox in sport mode, you had to extend the right foot some way to reach kick-down. This is more an observation than a complaint, since you soon get used to it, or perhaps the car I had was out of adjustment — the radio certainly was, becoming incoherent with rage whenever I tried to coax it towards Radio 4 longwave.
It breaks wind every time you brake, a little hiss that after a while becomes a reas- suring companion and is audible only because everything else isn't. The steering is very light — presumably for the Sains- bury's carpark — and the self-adjusting suspension is an awesome mystery. You can adjust it yourself when mountaineer- ing, or tipping granny in and out, but it also makes its own decisions according to how you're driving. During our week together it behaved impeccably, given away only by an occasional whirring, and there's no doubt it has transformed the handling of this vehi- cle. The old style had a ship-like roll and lurch on corners but this one stays just where you put it, upright, solid and sure.
I didn't, alas, have a chance to test it off road but I don't doubt that the Range Rover remains what it always has been: one of the most capable, and the most stylish and comfortable of cross-country vehicles. Whether you choose it for serious off-road travel is another matter. If it goes wrong in the middle of the Rift Valley, you want to be able to bodge it up, whereas all those computerised electronics need a mobile workshop to sort them out. Nor was it encouraging to read in the handbook that when off road you should avoid heavy bangs underneath for fear of damaging the catalytic converter. The subject of the wretched, expensive, ineffective, misbegot- ten cat is for another time; the point is, you can't forever avoid heavy bangs underneath and any off-road vehicle should be strong enough to take them.
As for reputation, I've talked to two peo- ple who got rid of their new Range Rovers because of electronic problems. One replaced it with a Defender and the other defected to the Cherokee Jeep. For years now there have been question marks over Land-Rover's build quality, as opposed to their design and capability. Now I hear that the reputation of the Discovery among the many expatriate owners in Saudi Arabia is, to put it kindly, mixed, and that Toyotas have an obviously superior air-conditioning system (why?). I lost my heart to Land- Rover long ago and hate to hear such sto- 'Wicked!' ries. Above all else, they should be durable, and if they're not that then you can't excuse to yourself the cost of them. Range Rover should do what Daewoo do demonstrate confidence in their product by upping their warranty from one year to three and throwing in three years of free servicing. That would be something for your 48K.
And yet .. . and yet. I drove that beast and liked it, and the more I drove it, the more I liked it. It was comfortable, safe and enjoyable. I had confidence in it. It is a luxury car, yet still king of the off-roaders. Forget the Rift Valley factor. Buy a few.
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