NOT THE SAME OLD LAND ROVER
With surprising performance and impressive opulence, 2017 Range Rover Autobiography worth writing home about
If you have a nomadic heart and a hankering for the high life, the Range Rover Autobiography might just be the ideal vehicle. It blends go-anywhere ability with luxurious opulence, but it was not always that way. The original debuted in 1970, with two doors and a utilitarian interior designed to be hosed out should the need arise. However, in the 1980s, Range Rover started to move upmarket and toward the stature it has now attained.
For those looking to get into the high-end Airbnb business, the long wheelbase Autobiography might just be the place to start; it provides a home away from home. There’s leather galore, amenities aplenty including four-zone climate control and, of course, lots of space, thanks to the 198-millimetre stretch in the wheelbase over the standard Range Rover.
With the rear seats upright, it has space for 909 litres of cargo. Power the seats flat and there are 2,345 L — almost enough space for a double bed. Of course, it has built-in rear-seat entertainment screens and a 1,700-watt Meridian sound system to amuse on a rainy night. Or one might opt to stargaze through the oversized panoramic moonroof.
Up front, the Autobiography has very comfortable and fully articulated seats, along with a new infotainment system. Unlike previous iterations, this version is quick to react and it’s intuitive. The instrumentation can also be tweaked to deliver a conventional look — with or without the “torch” effect of rings around the dials — or put a full-size map in its place. One of the nice touches is a chiller in the centre console box.
However, there are a couple of small but annoying nits. The head-up display is for the birds, and on the tester it slanted to the left when put in its lower position, making it more distraction than assist. The other issue is less onerous, but equally annoying: The heating wires embedded in the windshield glint when driving toward the sun, which was distracting.
The list of advanced technologies covers all aspects of safety. A 360-degree camera provides all-around park-distance control, lane departure and keep assist come with a driver monitor, which can detect a drowsy driver. The Range Rover also features
adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go function, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, automatic high beams and autonomous braking. That’s an impressive array, but it also has the ability to parallel and perpendicular park all by itself; the driver simply selects the appropriate gear and controls vehicle speed.
The Autobiography is powered by a 5.0-L supercharged V8 engine, pushing out 510 horsepower and 461 pound-feet of torque, motivating the aluminum-bodied behemoth from rest to 100 km/h in 5.5 seconds, in spite of its 2,400-kilogram curb weight. It is quiet when needed, yet also sounds the part when the gas pedal is mashed.
The Range Rover is seriously quick, although the fuel consumption when the engine is used to the max is not for the faint of heart; an enthusiastic drive left the trip computer showing 23.1 L/100 km. The overall average was a more palatable 15.3 L/100 km.
The power reaches all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission with a sport mode and paddle shifters. Being a Range Rover means it’s more than capable of, well, roaming the range; the Terrain Response 2 system offers a number of driving modes, all of which tailor everything from the engine, transmission and centre differential to the chassis, ensuring optimal traction.
The Autobiography feels rewardingly light on its tires when the road twists and turns. The reason is the advanced electronic assistants. The Adaptive Dynamics system monitors
the vehicle’s movement up to 500 times a second to minimize unwanted body movement. Dynamic Response improves things by using hydraulic roll control front and rear. The result is a remarkably flat attitude.
The advanced air springs and adaptive damping cope admirably, regardless of whether it’s a rough road or a gnarly trail, as the ride is both refined and unhurried. It also offers varying ride heights: Access mode lowers the Autobiography by 50 mm from the normal position, easing ingress. Off-road mode ups it by a maximum of 75 mm over normal, which gives the Autobiography the ability to wade through almost a metre of water.
The Range Rover Autobiography is not your grandpa’s Land Rover, and it is a very distant relative to the original. It is opulent, supremely fast and very adroit on the road, while possessing the ability to go just about anywhere the owner’s heart desires. Mind you, would one seriously go offroading in a $162,350 rig? I think not, but at least the rest of the world knows you can.