Five Classic Trials
Prices for original two-door Range Rovers are soaring, so the later four-doors offer better value for money. David Simister drives an early Nineties Vogue to see if it’s still a class act
Range Rover Vogue
So you’re the marketing man’s dream customer – one of the ‘ business and professional people, with a leaning towards the great outdoors’ that Solihull courted in the opening pages of the Range Rover’s launch brochure back in 1970. Lucky you!
As such, you’re looking for a swish set of wheels to greet you as you leave the company HQ in Manchester on a Friday night, soothe your fevered brow on the drive home to collect your family and sturdiest outdoor clobber and then power effortlessly up the M6 to a post-lockdown weekend in the Lake District, plump your posterior down on the lower half of the double-decker tailgate and pull on your walking boots for a weekend in the fells.
Today, though, the later Vogue is all the Range Rover that you could ever ask for, representing all your outdoorsy high-brow aspirations in its Ardennes Green paintwork. This wasn’t even the range-topping Range Rover when it rolled out of the showroom back in 1993, but it does everything in its power to insulate you from the outside world. Better yet, it offers considerably more value for money than the increasingly rarefied original two-doors; values for those earlier cars have climbed to such an extent that it’s now highly unusual to see one outside of a show or a classic dealer’s showroom window, but later four-doors can still hack it as workhorses capable of shrugging off the odd rutted green lane or two.
It’s obvious from the Vogue’s dashboard that it’s descended from the original, but the Eighties boardroom makeover lends it that all-important executive sheen. Where the two-door has two basic circular air vents, the Vogue weighs in with five much wider rectangular units and a chunky two-spoke wheel cloaks an instrument binnacle that squeezes a rev counter into the two-dial setup. The transmission tunnel is festooned with cubby boxes and electric window switches, with a short, stubby selector to access the smooth four-speed automatic gearbox.
Everything about it feels plusher and more cocooned and the 3.9-litre engine – still a Rover V8, but with electronic fuel injection in place of the old carburettors – starts with a murmur rather than a thunder, settling into a gentle purr when you’re out on the open road. It’s easier to live with in the corners, too, thanks to power-assisted steering and the front and rear anti-roll bars that were fitted as standard after 1990. Stopping shouldn’t be an issue, either, because this car was specified with the Range Rover’s first ever anti-lock braking system, although it was standard fit on the even plusher Vogue SE.
In fact, it’s easy to forget that you’re in the green-wellies-and-waxed-jacket world of off-roaders once you’re settled into the later Range Rover’s veloured contours; once you discount the commanding driving position the experience is so effortless that you could almost be in a Jaguar XJ6 of the same era.
And yet, while the Vogue’s refinement has clearly been honed, it can still tackle a boggy Cumbrian hillside with aplomb. It shares its ground clearance, approach angles and four-wheel-drive system with the two-door Rangies, although its self-shifting transmission arguably offers a little less outright control than the four-speed manual.
The only real difference between the two, in fact, is that getting muck out of the Vogue’s deep pile this and leather-lined that interior will be more of a pain than with the older car’s simpler hose-it-and-forget-it cabin.
So, limo-like luxury and refinement that can still cut it in the rough stuff? Try saying that about a Jaguar XJ6.