I’m a bit lost. Or at least, the SUV buyer I have previously been is a bit lost. Having been a serial and completely contented buyer of Land Rover Discovery 4, I really don’t know what I would buy next.
Earlier this year I was at the launch of the new Discovery 5. What can I tell you?….the 3.0 litre 6 cylinder Discovery still drives fantastically well on road. It is probably a little better than the previous model, but that was already very good. It is still an incredibly quiet, refined and relaxing place to be. Amazingly so.
It will still carry a whole lot of stuff. SUVs that claim to be practical, need to have squared off rears like the controversially styled Discovery.
It will still go through and over, incredibly difficult terrain and feels like it can defy the laws of physics. However, you and I both know that very few buyers of upmarket SUVs ever do that. I don’t.
I was given a very useful bit of perspective on this subject by Volvo, during the launch of their V90 Cross Country. When cars like the Volvo and the Audi All-road first hit the market, it was easy to assume that it was a purely cosmetic exercise to shift estate cars and that all the modifications would do for you is survive a good kerbing and burn more fuel.
However, on the latest Volvo launch, we were forced to take the cars on an off-road course that I would have been (incorrectly, but understandably) apprehensive about taking my Discovery on. The clearance, suspension articulation and traction from this allegedly tarted up estate car, were phenomenal.
This started me thinking about my need for an SUV. The Volvo proved that it certainly wasn’t necessary to have one to get up and down the forestry track to my wee house.
Getting back to the Discovery 5, I deliberately mention the 3.0 litre engine as it is the one that makes the car in any way a driver’s car. It has enough grunt and sounds good enough to keep you happy enough. You can take on an overtaking manoeuvre without needing the road to extend arrow straight and empty for miles in front of you. There is also a 2.0 litre engine, and I imagine that is fine for commuting or school runs, but it feels very ordinary in a car that is priced anything other than ordinarily.
Which brings me onto my overall issue with the Land Rover Discovery 5. It’s a Range Rover.
That 2.0 litre 4-cylinder press car I drove was, as you might imagine on a press launch, a very well specified car, but nevertheless, £75,000!! Really??
It was covered in luxurious materials and laden with every gadget the good people of JLR could think of. Inside the electrically operated tail-gate, there were buttons with which to fold both sets of rear seats…….in a Land Rover !?!?!?
My previous two Discovery 4 XS’s had Harmon Kardon speakers, touch screen media, voice control, heated seats, air suspension, parking sensors and rear view cameras, so they were luxurious, but they had thicker harder-wearing leather, rubber mats all round, change from £45,000 and…… they actually looked like Land Rovers.
My Discovery purchase was, I thought, the satisfactory conclusion of a journey.
My first SUV was a Mitsubishi Shogun, which drove well and carried or towed the contents of an Amazon warehouse, but it was a bit agricultural and had oceans of mid-grey plastics and other uninspiring materials.
I overcompensated after that with a black, de-chromed, tinted windowed Porsche Cayenne GTS. Fabulous thing. Sounded like thunder and handled better than many sports cars that had come before. Unfortunately it failed to top 19 mpg, made me feel like a drug dealer, suffered 5 figure annual depreciation and only just managed to hold one small single under-counter IKEA fridge, one fateful day.
The Discovery therefore was perfect for me. Twenty grand less than the Porsche and almost as luxurious, it carried as much as the Shogun and drove really well – not Porsche well, but very well and….people could mistake me for a farmer in my Discovery if they insisted, but no-one would be tempted to knock on the window and start whispering chemical requirements.
So why have Land Rover apparently vacated their place in the market? The Discovery 5 is a fine automobile and will sell, but it is for a different audience now. What should I, from ye olde Discovery 4 audience, buy?
That brings me nicely onto another event I attended earlier in the year. Ssangyong (yes, Ssangyong) brought their current range of cars up to central Scotland for a press day.
I may have previously suggested that Ssangyongs had been styled by children brandishing crayons after a teaspoon too much Calpol, but two things have happened: the Ssangyong designers have (very recently) put the medication down and some of the more mainstream designers would appear to have snapped it up, so the playing field is quite level now.
In particular, Ssangyong were keen for us to have a wee preview of their latest big SUV, the Rexton, launching later this month. It’s an ordinary and handsome looking, solid, well-appointed, highly equipped, serenely smooth and quiet, full size SUV that comes with a 5 year warranty and at about £35,000, costs roughly the same as a 2-3 year old Discovery that could be ten minutes of remaining warranty away from a long list of replacement electronic parts.
It’ll tow 3.5 tonnes to the other end of the island and deliver you as fresh and relaxed as any other car. I was really impressed and once again found myself wondering what I should be driving.
After some reflection, I don’t think the answer is the new Ssangyong Rexton for me. The 2.2 litre engine is good, but it’s just not good enough. In the smaller Korando mid-size SUV it’s a hoot, but it’s just not enough in the Rexton.
I’m being very picky here, but my old Discovery 4, while no rocket ship, was good enough to get safely past that annoying one-speed driver when the chance arose.
The Volvo V90 Cross Country would do me very nicely. It drives well, is superbly put together and luxuriously appointed, is a design tour-de-force, does any off-road work I will ever need and is closer to a car than a truck, but it doesn’t have the towing capacity I need, so it’s not the one for me.
The Volvo XC90 appeals, but it also has a surprisingly low towing capacity and I have a heavy trailer even before I go and put a heavy old classic car in it.
I’m a bit lost and for the time being am settling for my ten year old Defender which, after a remap and an exhaust, has nearly enough grunt, looks cool, barely depreciates and can be fixed with either a hammer, a soldering iron or a tin of Hammerite. However, serene and relaxed, it is not, so my search goes on.
