Land Rover: Range Rover Velar

The Range Rover Velar wears a name that harks back to the very beginning of Land Rover’s storied luxury off-road dynasty. Velar—from the Latin word for veil or hide—was the name put on prototypes of the original Range Rover engaged in real-world testing in the late 1960s.

- Angus MacKenzie

The vehicles looked so different from the rough, tough, workhorse Land Rover that company execs figured the different badges meant no one would guess it was their secret new SUV.

The Range Rover Velar is perhaps less unexpected. Like the Range Rover Evoque, the sheer-surfaced, extravagantly proportioned Velar looks like it was driven straight out of Land Rover chief design officer Gerry McGovern’s concept studio. Which is pretty much what happened.

“We desperately wanted to hold on to the design vision,”says Velar vehicle line director Kevin Stride. “It’s been an obsession.”