An elephant, you say? Here, in this room?
Living with a Discovery Mk5 is enough to turn you into a Millwall FC supporter: everyone hates you, you don’t care. By Ben Oliver
I should probably begin this goodbye by acknowledging the controversy around the fifthgeneration Discovery. A senior car industry figure – a member of our CAR Power List, no less – saw mine and asked me how driving one made me feel about myself. And in an Instagram post, former colleague Chris Harris said Land Rover needed to earn his forgiveness for the Disco 5.
I just don’t get their ire. The haters are most obviously triggered by the asymmetric rear end, and secondly by the rear three-quarter view in general, which some find bulbous. There’s also the fact that the cabin of this car has swapped the slightly militaristic feel of the Disco 3 and 4 for an elegance which gets close to the Range Rover’s, but an infotainment system which doesn’t get close enough to the standards set by Audi and Mercedes. It’s also massive: a proper, old-school, upright, full-size SUV at a time when something more subtle is a lot more socially acceptable.
Some of this I understand. Personally, I love the styling and the cabin layout. Yes, the infotainment is off the pace, but the Disco’s size brings a capability and versatility which I suspected would prove their worth over a long test. They did, and so convincingly that it won over at least some of the haters.
I feel like I did more in this car than in any long-term test car I’ve run before, not least because it encouraged me to. I certainly did more miles in it: nearly 17,000 in eight months, so around twice the national average. From Sussex it did a ski trip to the Alps, two journeys to the west coast of Ireland, one to Brittany and one to bounce over the heather of the Scottish Highlands with an original Disco for the story in this issue on the model’s 30th anniversary (see page 106). It was also a wedding car and the team car on bike rides from Brighton to Stratford-on-Avon and overnight from London to Suffolk, among others. It carried seven, went to the tip and yes, saw regular and perhaps more typical action on the school run. I found little it couldn’t do, and I did more for having it.
Flaws? It’s pretty thirsty. I seldom got much more than 30mpg from a tank, and a motorway fill-up could easily be £115. Its size was an issue when trying to park in town, when I became aware that I was driving a vehicle between passenger car
and commercial vehicle in scale. I’d cruise resignedly past parallel-park spaces I’d have attempted in something a fraction shorter, and I had to remember to check the height restriction on every car park I attempted to enter.
But cities and multi-storey car parks don’t need Discovering.
It’s been fun to use this car as it was intended – for big family and sporting adventures – and it turns out it does the boring stuff on the way there just as well. The air-sprung ride and seat comfort (helped by the optional massage function) have meant long journeys have remained possible even after I blew another disc in my back, and the fact that my car racked up a rapid 17,000 miles without issue might reassure those who worry about Land Rover’s reliability.
Elsewhere in this issue I report on how sales of the big Discovery have declined to the point where it’s now last in Land Rover’s sales charts. That’s more to do with the range of other cars that LR loyalists are now offered than any inherent flaw in the Disco. But it might pose an existential risk to what was once a mainstay of the range should that range be rationalised as losses force Land Rover to restructure.
Like the haters, I’ll be sad to see the back of mine. It would be a lot worse to see the back of this capable model for good.