RANGE ROVER - BACK IN THE HIGH LIFE

ALL-NEW FIFTH-GENERATION RANGE ROVER STANDS TALL OVER LUXO SUV RIVALS

- RICHARD PORTER

COMING UP with a new Range Rover is similar to eye surgery or bomb disposal; you really don’t want to mess it up. Like the Hilux for Toyota or the 911 for Porsche, the Range Rover is the heart of what Land Rover does; the nucleus from which everything else radiates. Get this one wrong and they’d kill the reflected glory that shines on the Sport and Velar and Evoque.

So when Land Rover needs to make a new Range Rover there are no half measures. It starts with a fresh platform, brand new from the wheels up and not seen under any other model, though it will be used under the next RR Sport and other Land Rovers to follow. Compared to the last Range Rover, the wheelbase grows by 75mm and the car itself stretches 53mm, though it’s a fraction narrower and lower than the old one.

Like the old car, the shell is largely aluminium, though it’s now ringed with steel at strategic points to make it stiffer, and if you like to stretch out in the back there’s a long- wheelbase version with an extra 200mm let into the back doors and so much rear space you could lose your kids in there. Before you have a parental panic, you might discover them sitting in the optional third row because for the first time the full-size Range Rover can be had as a seven-seater, though only in the longer wheelbase.