The New Range Rover: The Most Capable Car Ever Made?

Gerry McGovern, the man who designed this, the latest Range Rover, had a difficult job. He had to update one of the most iconic vehicles ever made. He had to take something that's already the best and make it better for newer audience. At its unveiling in London, he said the new Range Rover has to be the most capable vehicle in the world, comfortable in the outback or at the opera. That's the precisely what the last generation can do. Hell, it's what it still does every single day. So what is this? The fourth generation brings to the game? Well, it turns out everything but also a little bit of nothing. Try and get your [unk] around that. Land Rover customers, when asked what they wanted from the new car, asked for no changes, only minor improvements, which is a bit tricky really especially when the outgoing product was the benchmark for luxury and ability, but there were few things that needed fixing that blissfully have been. The rear, for example, is no big enough for actual humans. It can do away with the bench seat and have two captains chairs fitted with a muscle dysfunction. Land Rover has also listened to the complaints of having a cabin that's slightly over encumbered with buttons. Now, that's all gone. And it's been replaced with a screen that does everything. Naturally, it comes with [unk] jazzy dual-view tech, which means when I'm hacking through the deserts or up a mountain, my passenger can be watching a DVD while I, I'm paying attention to the sat nav. The interior is an example of wonderful luxury as it should be because the new Range Rover isn't cheap at all. It starts at a sniff of 71,000 pounds and goes all the way up to over 120,000 if you want a V8 Supercharged Ultra [unk] model like this one with lots and lots of toys, but for the extra money, you don't just get extra luxury, you also get some extra clever engineering. You see, the new Range Rover, despite being bigger in almost every dimension than its predecessor, weighs 420 kilos less. That's five adults or around 30 of me. It manages the things with all aluminum construction; it's a trick Land Rover picked up from Jaguar and the first for an SUV. This car's body shell weighs less than a BMW 3 Series, and that's quite smart, but what it means is that this car uses three courses of the fuel of the last one. So essentially, it's nowhere near as thirsty a car of this size should be. But you're definitely asking ahead, is it still capable? Well, put it like this, throughout this entire film, we've been playing around in the desert, but now, we're headed to the mountains to talk about what it's like to be in the hot seat. The humming in this has been tweaked quite a lot. The weight loss helps, but also the algorithms from the Off-Road Kit has been adjusted as well. Higher spec models get adaptive suspension, so when you get into a corner, the car adapts to keep your noise and level. It's not a new thing for the class, but it's nice to see it's here. The Range Rover comes with the standard off-road tools, adjustable suspension, various traction modes, heated seat, a Supercharged 510 brake horsepower V8, a support vehicle for the people who know what they're doing, and-- Well, that's it. Even on standard road tires, this thing will go through the desert, on the road, and off a mountain with no fuss at all. And that's what makes a Range Rover better than the Germans playing catch-up. And that's precisely what will make Bentley's attempt in SUV say one thing. The thing is the Range Rover is the most capable car in the world. The last generation embarrassed pretty much everything on the road. Now, this, the new, bigger, simple to use, lighter version, well, it can take a Union Flag and wave it in every other manufacturers' face. You may make it quite slim, but it can traverse a desert. Your sports cars may hit 62 miles an hour from rest in less than 5 seconds, but this one will do in 5.4 while massaging its driver's bum and playing Finding Nemo for the kids. And yeah, they make SUVs too, but you know why they make SUVs? It's because the Range Rover is exceeding sales from all other cars. To put it simply, it's because the Range Rover is the most versatile, capable, and useable vehicle on the roads today.