You often don’t notice something until you have it. If you’ve bought a new shirt, for example, you won’t see anyone else wearing it until you’ve bought it. Up until then, it’s been invisible to you. Then, all of a sudden, it’s everywhere. I was minded of this when reviewing the Land Rover Discovery. Sure, I’d seen a couple around, but when I was driving around in it, I was suddenly aware of just how many of them are out there. I live just outside London and commute into south west London, so this is obviously the Land Rover Discovery’s natural environment. It will scale a mountain, but it’s also rather comfortable for tackling the A316 in. Perhaps it’s the lofty vantage point that suddenly made so many of them visible all of a sudden.
It’s easy to scoff and question why on earth anyone who spends any time at all driving anywhere near London would need or want a Land Rover Discovery. It’s absolutely gargantuan and London’s roads aren’t really designed for them. At just shy of 2m tall, 5m long and at 2.2m wide, it has what we can politely describe as presence.
Yet this presence isn’t overbearing. The Land Rover Discovery is attractive in an old school off-road kind of way, so it doesn’t turn heads. It certainly doesn’t attract attention in the same way as the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.
The model tested is the Land Rover Discovery Metropolitan Edition. This basically means that they’ve thrown the options list at it. More on that later, but it provides an attractively reassuring hug as soon as you get in it. You can immediately see the appeal.
As it’s massive, practicality is a major point of attraction. There are 1137-litres of boot space. We went for a weekend in the Cotswolds – it really felt at home there – and even with my wife’s propensity to take everything with her whenever we stay away, it still felt empty inside. A couple of bulky bags looked rather lonely in the boot. There’s even the split tailgate to make loading that much easier. Or act as somewhere to sit while you change into your Wellies.
The Land Rover Discovery is also a seven-seater as standard. Bring the rear bench into play, with its heated seats, and boot space reduces to 258-litres. I had to move some stuff around for the kids, and with the five-seat arrangement managed to fit in two bikes, two scooters, bags, helmets, food, and whatever else was needed. You could move house in this thing. From a family practicality standpoint, the Land Rover Discovery is unparalleled amongst cars I’ve driven.
Then you hop back in the front and it’s all rather lovely. The latest Privi infotainment system works well. You have upgraded Meridian audio, a panoramic sunroof and a fixed rear panoramic roof (there’s a lot of roof), a fridge in the centre console, head up display and Windsor leather heated, ventilated and massage seats. It even purifies the air in the cabin and lets you know how polluted it is outside. It’s healthier than walking if you’re in London.
The only complaint is the slightly cramped rear legroom. I’m 6ft 2” and my knees where in contact with the driver’s seat with it in my position. This is the price you pay for having seven seats. It wasn’t an issue in the Range Rover or Range Rover Sport, which are built on a different platform.
The Land Rover Discovery Metropolitan Edition as tested was fitted with the Ingenium 3-litre six-cylinder 300hp turbocharged diesel engine. It’s an engine that really suits the Land Rover Discovery. Diesel engines, even in their refined modern state, have retained an air of the agricultural, so they work here. They also provide plenty of torque, 650 in this instance. With an unladen weight of 2,437Kg, this is important.
It’s only when you really provoke the engine into an aggressive response that you become aware of this weight. You can find the throttle a little tricky to modulate at first, because you need to call on all 300 horses and all 650 torques to makes gaps and overtakes. When you do, however, 0-60mph is ticked off in just 6.5secs. That’s seriously impressive for a shire horse.
That’s not what the Land Rover Discovery is about, though. It never encourages you drive it quickly. Sit back, flick the massage seats on, grab a cold (non-alcoholic) one out of the fridge, listen to your favourite tunes and let the journey happen around you. It’s all so serene and rather lovely. Again, I can see the appeal.
This being a serious car review, however, I did try to drive it quickly. It hustles along more pleasingly than I expected although I never felt comfortable with the body roll in corners. On the motorway, it’s in its element. It will sit there and devour the miles. The 89-litre fuel tank also means that you’ll rarely troubling your local petrol attendant. I covered just shy of 400 miles and had barely used half a tank of diesel at 32.8mpg. The only thing stopping your journey will be your bladder.
I was surprisingly taken by the Land Rover Discovery. It just kind of blends in and does as it’s told. It was at home crawling into London and it was home in the Cotswolds. The supreme levels of comfort certainly help and it has that floaty ride quality that many cars try to iron out. The whisper quiet cabin and all the options give it a gracefulness that the brand has become synonymous with.
I was curious before receiving the Land Rover Discovery where it would fit into the range. It’s not as decadent as the full fat Range Rover and it’s not as driver focussed as the Range Rover Sport. It’s not as sleek and elegant as the Range Rover Velar, either. Where exactly would it fit in?
With a base price of £74,000, the Land Rover Discovery Metropolitan is also well priced if you’re in the market for a luxury SUV. The model tested had a few off-road options which were superfluous to my time with it, so you can save £4,000 if you’re not a farmer or don’t own horses. It has all the trimmings and all the presence that people seem to demand these days. Of course, if you don’t need a fridge, massage seats and heated third row seats, you can spend less. I’d certainly go for the D300 engine, though, it just makes sense.
One other task I required the Land Rover Discovery for was to head over to Reading to review the Porsche 911 GTS. After a day buzzing around in a sportscar, and in a sign of my increasing years, it was just lovely to sink into those Windsor leather seats, have a lower back massage and float back home.
