Damn it. I had some plans to introduce foxhunting in cars when the more
traditional equine variety is banned, but now the government has announced
it is deciding whether four-wheel-drive vehicles should be banned from
Britain’s ancient rights of way.
At the moment, you can drive any car down any so-called green lane providing
you can prove that it was once used as a road. Those of a rambling
disposition — and remember the Ramblers’ Association began its life as an
offshoot of the communist movement — say this is preposterous. You shouldn’t
be able to drive a Range Rover down the Ridgeway just because it was once
used by a bullock cart in 1628.
Now I agree, people who spend their weekends in combat trousers pushing one
another’s Land Rovers out of muddy puddles are probably mental. I certainly
wouldn’t use one as a babysitter, that’s for sure. But if they want to spend
their free time driving their Isuzu Troopers into a lake, that’s their
business. And anyway, only 5% of the nation’s enormous network of country
paths are available to off-roaders, so taking that small piece of the pie
away does seem a bit unfair.
Fairness, however, doesn’t really bother eco-twerps. They had a speed limit on
all waterways in the Lake District, except a tiny part of Windermere on
which normal people could water-ski and ride jet bikes. Now, however, thanks
to the communists, even this little piece is about to be taken away and
given back to Bill Oddie.
If off-road cars are banned from the countryside, we may have a problem
because there are also whisperings in the rectory of power that they may
also be banned from town centres too. Everyone, apparently, is getting fed
up with mums in their Chelsea tractors, taking up too much space and
generally bashing into everything.
So all in all then, not an especially good time for Land Rover to stick its
neck above the battlements and announce the arrival of a new Discovery. A
car that cannot be used in town . . . or out of it.
Now I should make it crystal clear at the outset that I absolutely loathed the
last Disco. It used the old Range Rover’s chassis, which means it was rooted
in the late 1960s, and boy, could you tell on the road. You could have given
one to an asylum seeker as a sort of welcome-to-Britain gift and he’d have
gone straight back home again.
And it had the most awful image problem because it was either driven by mums
or murderers. Mums liked the seven seats. Murderers liked the early models,
at least, with proper locking differentials, which were very good off-road.
This meant they could drive far into the woods to bury their victims’ heads.
The new car is a completely different animal. The raised rear roof line
remains for those who have a pet giraffe, and the doors seem to have come
from a different car, but overall, there’s no doubt that it’s a looker. A
sort of Matra Rancho for the 21st century if you like.
Underneath you get a separate chassis and a monocoque, so you have the
toughness to deal with the green lanes you won’t be driving on and plenty of
refinement in towns, where you won’t be driving either.
It is a hugely comfortable car to drive: quiet, not too roly-poly in the bends
and blessed with an extraordinarily delicate throttle pedal that makes
parallel parking — even on a steep hill — a complete doddle. The only thing
I really didn’t like about the new Disco driving experience were the parking
sensors that beeped pretty much constantly and went hysterical when I was
still miles from the car behind.
What good is 2ft in a modern city centre parking slot? They should be set to
go berserk when you’re 2mm from impact, not 2ft.
This is especially annoying because the latest Disco is so big that you’re
always 2ft from everything. You could be in Paris and still be only 2ft from
you’re own front door. Mind you, this does at least mean that there’s now a
small boot to be found behind the third row of seats.
Under the bonnet you get a 4.4 litre version of Jaguar’s 4.2 litre V8. This
could uproot trees with its torque and surprises you with its power. And if
you don’t fancy mpg figures in the low teens, you can have a diesel that
uses the stunning twin turbo from Jaguar’s S-type.
Inside, while you don’t get the style or flair of a Range Rover, you do get a
sense of utilitarian toughness. You could certainly detonate a small — let’s
say one-kiloton — bomb in there and nothing would break. Prices haven’t been
announced yet but expect the base models to start at less than £30,000 and
the more expensive HSE petrol versions to nudge £50,000.
The Discovery is likely to be better off-road than its big brother, the Range
Rover. It is also bigger, more powerful, more torquey, faster, more
practical — thanks to the seven seats — more economical and considerably
cheaper.
On this basis it would be easy to sign off by saying the Disco is better than
one of the best cars in the world. But I’m afraid we’re far from the end of
the story. You see, the Range Rover is actually a five-seater executive car
that happens to have four-wheel drive. Its rivals are the Mercedes S-class
and the Jaguar XJ8.
The Discovery is the other way round. It is supposed to be an off-road car
that you can use on the road. Its rivals are the John Deere tractor and the
wellington boot. This is why the new version worries me. I have not yet had
a chance to take it off-road but I know I’ll miss having a selection of
levers that make an almighty clunking noise when you pull them, as solid
chunks of pig iron interlock with other solid chunks of pig iron.
Instead you get a rotary knob that you use to tell the car what sort of
surface you’re on: grass, gravel, a muddy track, sand or the M1. The onboard
computer then changes the settings to optimise the diffs and the ride height
and the throttle sensitivity.
In theory it sounds amazing, and in practice it’ll probably work beautifully.
But if I were in the middle of the Kalahari, I’d rather have two chunks of
pig iron than some silicon chips that were designed and developed by four
blokes in Banbury. Of course, you may argue, the Discovery will not be used
in the Kalahari or even the Lake District, so why worry about how it will
perform there?
Oh, come on. That’s like saying a nuclear missile will never be fired so why
worry whether it will fly. It’s nice to know it can.
Whatever, one day soon, I’ll do something mad and adventurous with the new car
to see if it can handle the rough stuff and report back.
In the meantime, I do have some concerns. The man from Land Rover could lift
and tilt the middle row of seats easily, but that’s because he was built
like a supertanker’s anchor and had arms like slabs of ham.
I struggled and I suspect a mum with a screaming child under one arm would be
completely flummoxed. The Volvo XC90, which is also made by Ford remember,
is a much more practical and marginally more spacious proposition — and
cheaper, too, it must be said.
I also noted that each occupant in the rear is given controls to change the
radio station. This sounds fine in theory, but do you let your kids choose
what they listen to when you’re driving? I don’t. And if they had the
wherewithal to override my decision and switch to Radio 1, I’d take a hammer
to them — and their control panels — within the first three miles.
Here’s the big one then. Would I swap my Volvo for a Disco? The Land Rover’s
certainly nicer to drive. It feels more substantial, too, as though you’re
getting more “stuff”. It also has better engines and undoubtedly more
ability off-road. However, I mainly need a device for moving children to and
from school, so the answer is “no”.
As a car for mums, the Disco is narrowly beaten. But at the first possible
opportunity I’ll take one off-road and we’ll see just how it shapes up as a
car for murderers.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model: Land Rover Discovery V8
Engine type: V8, 4394cc
Power: 295bhp @ 5500rpm
Torque: 315 lb ft @ 4000rpm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic, four-wheel drive
Acceleration: 0-60mph: 8.0sec
Top speed: 121mph
Tyres: 255/60 VR18
Price: TBA (£30,000-£50,000)
Verdict: Hugely comfortable, highly powerful and robustly built, but
will the complex new computer systems still work in the Kalahari?
