The new Range Rover aims to offer all the luxury, practicality and performance of the previous car – but do it even better. We’ve driven one to find out if it’s as good as the best SUV rivals…
Price from £99,375 (est) On sale April 2022
Land Rover started out as a maker of rugged, functional vehicles, but long ago moved into a far more prestigious sphere – and no model epitomises that quite like the full-fat Range Rover.
While the original was designed so that you could hose the mud out of its interior, recent versions have been more likely to steal sales from luxury limos than farm vehicles. So, there was no need to rip up the rulebook for this new sixth-generation car. Land Rover simply set out to build an SUV that does what the previous version did – only better.
Of course, it’s bigger and more expensive, too. But, then, its rivals are also big and expensive. With a starting price hovering around six figures, the Range Rover can count anything from top-end versions of the Audi Q7 and BMW X7 through to the Bentley Bentayga and Porsche Cayenne as viable alternatives.
The Range Rover comes in two different lengths. The ‘regular-sized’ body is just over 5m long (a touch shorter than a Bentayga), while the long-wheelbase version has an extra 200mm between the front and rear axles.
There’s also a vast range of engines, as you might expect from a car that’s going to be sold in more than 170 countries, each of which has different attitudes towards – and taxes on – the different fuel types.
For starters, you can have 355bhp and 394bhp six-cylinder petrol engines and a 523bhp V8 petrol (made by BMW), plus three diesels, with 247bhp, 296bhp and 345bhp. There are also two plug-in hybrids with 434bhp or 503bhp and an official electric-only range of 70 miles (Land Rover says they can do 50 miles in any conditions). A Range Rover electric SUV will arrive in 2024.
On top of all that, the long-wheelbase variant is available with seven seats instead of five, or in super-luxe four-seat form with just two separate, reclining armchairs in the rear.
What’s it like to drive?
We tested four different new Range Rovers: a P400 (the 396bhp petrol) in long-wheelbase seven-seat form, and as an SV four-seater, then the P510 (503bhp V8 petrol) and D350 (345bhp diesel) in standard length.
They all get a vast array of chassis equipment, from air springs for comfort and active anti-roll bars to limit body roll, to active rear steer, which reduces the turning circle to not much more than on a Volkswagen Golf. There’s a limited-slip differential at the rear to improve traction, too, and ‘torque vectoring’, which brakes individual wheels to help the car turn in to bends.
The new Range Rover is available with wheels up to 23in diameter, and that’s the size that was fitted to the cars we drove.
In our mind, the car is happiest in its short-wheelbase form, where it retains the character that’s made it so well-loved, while improving refinement and comfort to world-class levels.
It rides flatly and quietly, and road and engine noise are muted, although we noticed a fair degree of wind noise on one example (they were still early cars). There’s an occasional thump over harsh surface imperfections and expansion joints, which you hear more than feel. Smaller wheels with a little more height in the tyre sidewalls should overcome a lot of that.
The Range Rover steers smoothly and is rewarding to drive, too. Even the short-wheelbase D350 weighs 2379kg, and some versions are much heavier, so there’s not much ‘sport’ in this sport utility vehicle. Indeed, Land Rover is to be commended for not adding ‘sportiness’ to the list of things this car is trying to do.
We’re not convinced it always nails ‘ultimate luxury’, either. The long-wheelbase variants don’t drive with the same panache as the short ones, while in the back, the little ride imperfections seem more noticeable. The Range Rover feels at its best – as the previous version was, incidentally – in its more straightforward forms.
Off-road ability seems impressive, though – for example, it can ford 900mm of water. We’ve only done some light track work so far, but the ground clearance, and the high approach and departure angles (which stop it grounding on steep terrain) are beyond even the Mercedes G-Class. We’ll give it a proper off-road test when we get a car in the UK.
What’s it like inside?
The Range Rover is as plush inside as befits a £100,000 luxury car. Leather or not-actually-leather alternatives feel good and the metals largely feel like metals.
There’s a large 13.1in touchscreen in the centre of the dashboard, but to minimise distraction, the car retains separate physical controls for the heating, the ventilation and the driving modes. The screen isn’t too difficult to navigate, but we’d still prefer a separate physical control dial wheel like you find in a BMW.
Roominess is strong. There’s loads of head room, and leg room is generous in the second row of seats in the short-wheelbase car. As for the long-wheelbase version, most adults could kick their feet in the air while sitting back there. On seven-seat variants, two adults can enjoy a respectable level of comfort in the third-row seats, although getting in and out does require some flexibility.
Better, perhaps, to have the Range Rover with just two rows of seats. If you do, you get the versatility of a boot floor that can pivot up in the middle to form a backrest, so you can sit on the lower half of the split tailgate, sheltered by the upper half. Touches like that – plus, of course, the Range Rover’s off-road ability – established its reputation as a versatile countryside vehicle.
Keyword: 2022 Range Rover review: price, specs and release date