UK Edition
What do you mean you wanted something a bit more distinctive? You can't say we weren't given fair warning of the "ultra-lounge" appearance of the new fifth-generation Land Rover Discovery, which has just been unveiled ahead of its debut at the Paris Motor Show on September 29. It goes on sale next year priced from £43,495.
The first clue was the sleek-if-bland Discovery Vision Concept in New York in April 2014 and later that year, not even the Icelandic snow could obscure the smoothed-out lines of the baby Discovery Sport.
Gerry McGovern, Land Rover's chief design officer, simply doesn't do rough and tough, and why should he? Land Rover's engineers reckon that despite looking like its driven straight off the catwalk, the Discovery will still be easily the best off-road Land Rover there’s ever been.
For that you can thank its Range Rover aluminium chassis with new steel subframes, entry and departure angles and ground clearance as good as the current model, the latest Terrain Response system and a wading depth of 900mm (a 200mm increase on the previous Discovery).
"I'm very happy with this off-road," said Nick Collins, vehicle line director for the new car (as well as the Range Rover Sport).
When the first three-door Discovery broke cover at the Frankfurt Show in 1989, complete with its backpack design and Conran Group styled facia, it was a stylish addition into a world of seriously utilitarian machines.
At the time, Chris Woodwark, Land Rover’s Commercial Director commented: "It's a leisure vehicle not aimed at the luxury sector at all. Discovery, if you like, is for Yuppies and Range Rover is for people who’ve already made it.”
More than 1.2 million vehicles and 27 years later, Land Rover's marketing story has become more opaque, with apparently, versatility, reconfigurability, storage and “lifestyle-enabling” identified as key qualities for the new car.
A different dimension
It's slightly longer and narrower than the outgoing Discovery, with 38mm's extra wheelbase and a slightly lower overall height.
Dispensing with the body-on-frame architecture of the previous model has saved 350kg, which means that with the smallest diesel engine, the lightest Discovery model is now 480kg less than the lightest predecessor.
As well as the weight saving, there's also an aerodynamic improvement in the new smoother bodyshell, active grille shutters and air suspension which lowers itself by 15mm at speed, and the outgoing model's coefficient of drag of about 0.4 will drop to a Cd of 0.33.
To keep headroom in the rear seats the floor is lower thanks to the steel subframes. The interior has three rows of power folding seats (which can be done remotely with a smartphone, apparently whilst skydiving if you’re to believe the pre-launch hype - see video, below):
With all of the seats folded away there's now a total of 2,046 litres of load space.
Believe the hype
Commenting on initial interest demand in the new Discovery, Jeremy Hicks, Jaguar Land Rover UK Managing Director, said: “Our retailers have been really excited to start talking about it; customer interest has exceeded all expectations already with a strong mix of new customers interested in the brand.
With the addition of the Ingenium 2.0 litre engine, we’re also looking forward to talking to more fleet and business users across the country.”
Gadgets galore
It's got all the latest gizmos including a WiFi hotspot for up to eight devices, nine USB ports and four 12-volt chargers. The seats are all individually heated and there are five child-seat ISOFIX points, two in each of the rear rows and one in the passenger seat.
You just knew that they were going to drop the split rear tailgate, which although much loved, is also expensive, difficult to seal and attracts corrosion.
Instead there's a basic sheet-moulded plastic top-hinged tailgate augmented with an aluminium picnicking/standing/seating plate, which folds out of the floor and can support up to 300kg.
The vehicle will also “kneel” or lower by up to 50mm to aid passengers' alighting or people getting their bottoms up on to that rear plate. Truth be told there isn't a lot of load space with all of the seats in place and access to that is impeded by the plate, but we'll reserve judgement until the first road test.
Powertrain options
The UK will get two diesel engine, a 237bhp twin-turbocharged, 2.0-litre, four cylinder with a 0-62mph time of 8.3 seconds (and producing figures of 43.5mpg and 171g/km of CO2 on the EU Combined cycle), and a 281bhp turbo 3.0-litre V6 which completes the same acceleration run in 8.1sec (39.2mpg and 189g/km of CO2).
The sole petrol version will be Jaguar Land Rover's 335bhp, 3.0-litre supercharged V6, capable of getting the Discovery from 0-62mph in 7.1sec and producing figures of 26mpg and 254g/km of CO2 on the EU Combined fuel economy cycle.
The transmission for all of these engines is the ZF eight-speed automatic, with a choice of single or two-speed Torsen-based torque biasing centre gearing.
Braked towing weight is 3.5 tonnes, there's a choice of 18-to-22 inch diameter wheels and a full-sized spare wheel is slung under the body.
"This isn't a car we've honed at the Nurburgring," says a spokesman, although funnily enough, that is exactly where spy pictures of the new Discovery were taken.
Proof of the pudding...
Clearly this is a car that needs to be driven before making any firm judgements, but at first glance while undoubtedly more refined, there's a sense that something of the old models' distinctive authenticity has been lost.
It's McGovern's shtick to refine surfaces like this and as he says, "people won't accept big panel gaps anymore," but to lose the old models' backpack design and the split tailgate in one redesign might be regarded as carelessness. Time will tell on that one.
The risk is that Land Rover is allowing a gap to build up between what its vehicles can do and what they look like. It's a gap that, even in developed markets like Europe and America, some rivals might seek to profitably exploit.
That’s yet to be seen, though. What we know for now is that when we get to drive new Discovery at the end of this year, far from the glitz and glamour of a motor show stand, the resulting road test will give the verdict on one of the most hotly anticipated cars Land Rover's history.
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