![]() ![]() At Land Rover’s off-road testing and experience centre at Eastnor Castle, we tackled slopes steep enough to make the ground disappear beneath the bonnet and mud thick enough to make even a Labrador give it a wide berth with an ease that made me check the team hadn’t sneakily swapped the car onto all-terrain tyres while we had coffee. Automatic terrain response is carried over from the previous model, along with a triple camera system to show the driver the terrain in front of the car and where each front wheel is. The brakes are also deserving of a special mention, striking perfect balance between the power to rein in a 2.5-tonne car and the smooth modulation required to make chauffeur-style stops.Īnd then there’s the fact that Land Rover has, remarkably, managed to move the on-road manners so far forward without compromising the car’s ability when you leave the tarmac. ![]() Big wheels, big weight and a lot of assistance means little in the way of feedback but you can feel confident in knowing exactly how the car will respond, making it easy to hold a tight line on narrow roads which the Range Rover is easily capable of filling. The steering is noticeably improved from the L405, there is no longer any slack around dead centre and overall, the system is more faithful and precise. Even on 22-inch wheels the ride is comparable to the Rolls-Royce Black Badge we drove a couple of weeks ago. The pitching and rolling that are, by and large, simply down to the physics of accelerating, braking and turning in a large, heavy and upright car are much reduced, although not entirely absent. Not so the new car you will be aware that the suspension is working hard but it is well isolated from the cabin. The same applies to the suspension the L405 rides better than anything this side of a Rolls-Royce but larger bumps can still cause the structure to shudder. This is thanks mostly to the significant attention paid to isolating road noise literally from the ground up and preventing it from resonating through the floor of the car. Our car lacked these but by every measure it significantly bests the previous model. Sepulchral quiet and comfort is the order of the day reducing Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) was a key engineering focus when creating the L460, even extending to an active noise cancelling system using speakers mounted in the headrests. It lacks the surprising low-key savagery of the same engine in the previous generation car but does a much better job of disguising the inherent diesel gruffness. Once you’re on the move however, the Range Rover picks up pace from around town to motorway speeds smoothly and effortlessly quickly. The gearbox also displays its typical confusion in stop-start traffic, occasionally thumping between ratios as you come on and off the throttle. ![]() That said the dark upright lozenges which hide the rear lights leave the rear looking somewhat plain and overly wide thanks to the horizontal black bar joining them.Ī 2,505kg SUV is never going to move off the line with genuine alacrity, even with 350PS (257kW) and 700Nm (516lb ft) of torque from the twin-turbocharged Ingenium straight-six diesel, not helped by the expected slow response from the ubiquitous ZF eight-speed automatic. The various flourishes such as the multi-faceted grille, the side panels which mimic the vents on previous models and the small metal finishing strips on the rear wings to break up the expanse of metal and help to accentuate the ‘hewn from solid’ appearance Land Rover’s design team led by Gerry McGovern was going for. A lack of window finishers not only makes for a sharper transition between body and glass but, along with flush door handles, improves both aero and wind noise the car has a drag coefficient of just 0.30Cd, impressive for something so large and bluff. The new Range Rover is more elegant and muscular too with a strong shoulder that runs from the bonnet all the way to the rear of the car with the glasshouse tucked inside it. The signature Range Rover styling elements are still present: clamshell bonnet, floating roof and split tailgate with raised lettering, but park new and old side-by-side and no one will be mistaking which is the more modern, sharper product. At first glance the changes are iterative, a comprehensive nip and tuck rather than a clean sheet restyle, but look further and the wholesale changes make themselves apparent. ![]() As mentioned, the L460 is not the radical styling departure that we have become used to with each new Range Rover. ![]()
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