Don’t you just love the winter? The bitter cold, the snow, the ice and the tricky driving conditions? The answer must be “yes”, if like wearing the right clothes, you have the right machine to tackle the season and all it can throw at you.
Fortunately, I turned up trumps just as the serious winter weather hit my part of Scotland. Delivered to my door, almost as the first flakes started to fall, was the latest version of the Land Rover workhorse, the Discovery.
This was a beauty, a top of the range HSE Luxury Spec with all the new technology and extra features added for 2015.
I wasn’t crazy about the colour at first sight. Kaikora Stone is one of three new paintjobs added to the range but the light bronze tone grew on me over the week with the consolation – perhaps unintended – that it did a great job in disguising the dirt thrown up from the tons of grit and salt spread to keep the roads clear.
The Discovery has now been with us for 25 years and it’s had an eventful quarter of a century, first appearing as a cheaper and more rugged version of the Range Rover. Unfortunately, to keep costs down a lot of the parts came from the back of the storeroom with virtually all the switchgear and instruments coming from other Rover Group cars such as the less than sophisticated Montego. It also used several Range Rover body panels, as well as door handles from the Morris Marina, headlights from the Freight Rover van and tail-lights from the Austin Maestro van.
Amazingly, these still bore the Austin Rover ‘chevron’ logo on their lenses until production of the first generation Discovery ended in 1998, ten years after Austin Rover itself ceased to exist.
Subsequent models saw improvements but over the years, build quality was always questionable under changing ownership including Ford and BMW and it wasn’t until the Indian conglomerate Tata bought Land Rover in 2008 that things started to be put right.
Now, along with the flagship Range Rover, its smaller Sport brother and the trendy Evoque, the production facility in the West Midlands is struggling to meet worldwide demand. Very soon we’ll see the new Discovery Sport which will replace the Freelander.
As a several-times previous Discovery owner, I’ve experienced some of the reliability problems from which the older models suffered – not least leaks and rust – but I have to say the latest model is a cracker.
It comes crammed with equipment which simply wasn’t there in the early models. One Discovery I bought new in the mid-90s cost £24,000 and didn’t even have air con or airbags – they were optional extras.
The price of the latest model has increased since then but in real terms, the car represents value for money and is deliciously comfortable – a position I enjoyed in the supportive leather seats with armrests as I towered above almost everything else on the road.
SE is now the new entry point replacing the previous GS and with it there are more standard features such as cruise control, front fog lights, automatic headlamps and wipers, headlamp power wash, auto dimming rear view mirror and interior foot well and door puddle lamps. Moving up the range adds xenon headlights whilst the most expensive HSE has bigger 20” alloy wheels and other options like the Grand Black Lacquer wood which was on the test car along with adaptive headlamps with automatic high/dip beam, surround cameras, rear locking diff, blind spot monitors, cooled cubby box, tow pack and full size spare wheel, which added almost £4,000 to the final bill.
Under the surface, the Disco has the latest connectivity to replicate the look and feel of compatible smartphone apps into the vehicle, which are displayed and controlled from the touchscreen. Land Rover’s own InControl App offers satellite-navigation, media streaming, internet radio and location services, plus access to the connected smartphone’s contacts, calendar and music library.
The test car came with seven seats but with them stored into the boot floor, there was stacks of storage space.
On the road, the 3 litre SDV6 255hp turbocharged & intercooled diesel engine is delightful and coupled to the 8-speed automatic gearbox takes everything in its stride. Despite its size and ride height, there’s little body roll and the car feels sure-footed, whatever the conditions. As always, I found the Stop-Start system deeply annoying and automatically disabled it on every start-up.
The Discovery of course is legendary for its off-road ability which has helped it pick up more than 200 international awards over the years. I took it into some muddy fields and it went everywhere without question. I didn’t even have to call on the range of off-road transmission options, engaged at the press of a button beside the rotary gearbox control which rises out of the centre console on start up.
So what are the negatives? Well, it’s not the cheapest option, it’s not the lightest on fuel and I regularly hear of mainly electrical problems which some unfortunate owners have suffered…… possibly because it is now so sophisticated.
But…….the latest version is a stunning machine which looks great and behaves impeccably whatever the conditions you ask it to tackle.
CAR: Land Rover Discovery HSE Luxury
PRICE: £59,965 (£63,395 as tested)
POWER: 3 litre SDV6 255 hp turbocharged and intercooled
PERFORMANCE: Top speed 112 mph 0-62 mph 8.8 secs
MPG: 35 mpg combined
CO2 EMISSIONS: 213 g/km
