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Range Rover review: why this British beast is no longer king of the road

The Range Rover used to be the best thing on four wheels, but has that honour now passed to the Germans? - Copyright 2018
The Range Rover used to be the best thing on four wheels, but has that honour now passed to the Germans? - Copyright 2018

Once, it was all so simple. If you wanted a luxury car, you chose a Rolls, or a Jag, or a Bentley. If you wanted a 4x4, you bought a Land Rover, or a Land Cruiser, or a Shogun. And if you wanted both in one car? Well, you bought a Range Rover, and that was the end of it.

The Range Rover has had a chequered history. Born in 1970 as the brainchild of Spen King and Gordon Bashford, it became the ultimate expression of rural British luxury in automotive form. Then the 1990s came along; the original Range Rover became the P38, and things slipped a bit, its Metrocab-esque styling and parts-bin interior causing some buyers to question whether this really was the luxury car they wanted.

It was the L322 of 2002 that really revitalised the brand. Its Phil Simmons styling was pure class, combining classic Range Rover design cues with upmarket flourishes and modern surfacing, but it was the interior that really made it – a beautifully judged blend of open-grain wood, rich leather and up-to-the-minute tech.

Today’s Range Rover still trades off the legacy of that game-changing model, its exterior a modern evolution thereof, and its interior still endowed with that same sense of boutique luxury. (It also shares, if its reputation is to be believed, the same dubious reliability). Trouble is, in the intervening years, it’s been surpassed as the ultimate expression of SUV luxury; until recently, the Bentley Bentayga held that crown, though even that has been usurped at the top of the tree by the Rolls-Royce Cullinan.

So can the big Rangie still cut it? Well, perhaps, for despite all this competition, the Range Rover’s place in the market is still curiously unique. In price, it sits below those two top-tier competitors, but above lesser rivals like the Audi Q7, Mercedes-Benz GLS and forthcoming BMW X7. All of these rivals have a slightly different bent, too, combining luxury with the practicality of seven seats, making them more obviously rivals to the Land Rover Discovery and Range Rover Sport.

Range Rover interior
The full-fat Range Rover still has the best interior of any off-roader

The Range Rover, by contrast, remains strictly five-seat only. You can choose between five versions and four engines: two V8 petrols, one supercharged and one naturally aspirated, and two diesels – one V6, one V8. It’s the latter we’ve got here, in Autobiography form which, believe it or not, is the middle of the range at £105,865 – below it sit Vogue and Vogue SE, above which are the rather awkwardly named SVAutobiography Dynamic and SVAutobiography Long Wheelbase. Notably, that price also puts it at around £15,000 more than the equivalent Range Rover Sport. How does it justify that price gap?

Most obviously, it does so with sheer bulk. The Range Rover Sport is imposing, but the full-fat version’s even more so. Pull away from your parking spot for the first time and, if you’re not used to a car of this size, the Range Rover feels instantly intimidating. This is a vast car in every dimension – it feels larger even than the Bentayga – and that impression is reinforced by slow, deliberate steering, which heaves the nose around gradually as though it were a supertanker.

Actually, a cruise liner would be a fairer comparison, for inside the Rangie still feels as plutocratic as you’d hope. You sit high, ensconced within acres of soft, smooth leather, satin-finish walnut veneer and thick carpet. And while that price might be high, but this Autobiography is better-specced than most people’s living rooms, with a digital TV, fancy sound system, four-zone climate control, and heated and cooled seats that you can adjust electrically no fewer than 24 ways. This is not so much an expensive car as a cheap house.

Mind you, a cheap house couldn’t move like this. There’s a thumping 546lbft of torque on hand, and while that doesn’t make the Range Rover throw-you-back-in-your seat quick – there are more than two and a half tonnes of it to shift, after all – it still accelerates with a sense of indefatigable surety, like an avalanche thundering down a mountain. You get the sense that brick walls couldn’t stop this thing.

That sense is aided and abetted by the truly imperious way the Range Rover wafts along – especially on a motorway where it occasionally gives you the impression you’re floating along above the proles in their ordinary cars. True, road noise from those big, wide tyres could be better-damped, but on the whole this is an incredibly relaxed way to rack up miles

That said, on an undulating back lane, the air suspension doesn’t feel quite as well tied-down; worse still, potholes and sharper ruts send unseemly jolts and shudders through the whole car whenever you run into them, shooting chunks out of the serenity you expect – and indeed, get, when the surface is less challenging.

The Rangie has another surprise up its sleeve on a B-road, though this time it’s a good one. Flick it into Dynamic mode and the car hunkers down, its suspension tightens up and its steering quickens dramatically. The result is a car that feels far less like the Mauretania, and more like a frigate. You’ll never get past its sheer size and weight – there’s still more body roll than would be ideal, and narrow lanes require careful threading – so if you want something fun to drive, you’re still best off picking a Range Rover Sport. Or indeed, something that isn’t an SUV. But given how regally ponderous the big Range Rover feels in Comfort mode, the way its character changes so markedly in Dynamic is impressive.

Space for occupants is vast. Of course it is; this is a Range Rover after all. Sitting in the front you won’t want for room, while in the rear, you can pretty much invite a few friends round for drinks. As we’ve already discussed, you don’t get the option of seven seats as you would elsewhere, though you might in return expect an expansive boot. But while there’s not exactly a shortage of luggage space, when the seats are up, there’s actually less than you’d find in, say, a Volkswagen Passat Estate, while an Audi Q7 with its extra row of seats folded away will knock it for six.

Range Rover in a lake  - Credit: David Shepherd
It blends in with the British countryside, and works well as a long-distance driver. How many cars can claim the same?Credit: David Shepherd

If you’re buying with your head, in fact, you’ll buy an SQ7. It’s quantifiably a better car – cheaper, faster, more versatile, more spacious, more comfortable, better handling, and even more economical. If you’re buying with your heart, however, the Range Rover will win out, simply by dint of the fact it feels vastly more special. And if you want the best of both worlds? Well, right there you have the reason for the enormous popularity of the Range Rover Sport.

Truth is, unless you’re being chauffeured about and therefore need the extra space in the back, it’s hard to make the case for the full-fat Range Rover over the Sport these days. The latter car is more agile, more affordable and – in seven-seat form – more versatile; yet it loses very little, if anything at all, to its larger stablemate in terms of comfort. The only real reason for choosing it, in fact, is because you want the original; the top dog.

Because that’s what the Range Rover is – still. Oh sure, there are more opulent, more expensive SUVs, but the Rangie will go places none of them will, and get you home again. None of them reeks of old money in quite the same way; turning up to a shoot in anything else simply wouldn’t do.

It is a flawed car, and in some areas it’s starting to feel its age, even in this facelifted form. It’s also bested objectively by its junior sibling – not to mention some of its less expensive rivals. But if it’s a truly plutocratic SUV you’re after, it turns out your choice is simple after all: the Range Rover’s the one.

Range Rover SDV8 Autobiography – facts and specifications

Range Rover SDV8 Autobiography

TESTED 4,367cc V8 diesel turbo, eight-speed automatic gearbox, four-wheel drive

PRICE/ON SALE £105,865/now

POWER/TORQUE 334bhp @ 3,500rpm, 546lb ft @ 1,750-2,250rpm

TOP SPEED 135mph

ACCELERATION 0-62mph in 7.3sec

FUEL ECONOMY 25.3mpg (WLTP Combined)

CO2 EMISSIONS 243g/km (NEDC equivalent)

VED £1,760 first year, £450/year for four years thereafter, then £140

VERDICT The Range Rover is getting on a bit and it’s not without its faults. It’s expensive, it’s thirsty, and it isn’t quite as comfortable as it should be. But for all that, and despite an influx of pricier rivals, nothing quite combines old-money image, off-road ability and unfettered luxury like it.

TELEGRAPH RATING Four stars out of five

Range Rover SDV8 Autobiography – main rivals

Bentley Bentayga Diesel, from £135,800

Bentley’s SUV feels big, weighty and unutterably lavish, but it’s hampered by some VW-esque switchgear and a dated infotainment system that hardly feel befitting of its high price. Feels a bit new-money, too.

Audi SQ7 Vorsprung, from £89,905

Fast, comfortable, practical, beautifully built and immensely versatile, the SQ7 is capable of seemingly physics-defying pace and handling. But it doesn’t feel anywhere near as special as the Range Rover – and its gauche sportiness won’t cut it with the country set

Range Rover Sport SDV8, from £92,215

The Range Rover Sport’s extra wieldiness means it’s easier to drive than its bigger brother – not to mention more fun. Choose a seven-seater and it’s far more versatile, too. If you look closely, it isn’t quite as plutocratic – but unless you’re aristocracy, you’re unlikely to notice.

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