Higher calling
The new Evoque looks very similar to the first generation model, but it is a vastly different animal, as Paul Acres finds out
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both available.
There’s enough adjustment in the driver’s seat and steering to ensure that all but the extraordinary few can find a decent driving position.
Visibility is good out the front but grows steadily worse the further back you go, thanks to that very slender rear windscreen. It’s at this point I should mention the ClearSight technology that Land Rover have introduced in the Evoque. It consists of a rearfacing camera that’s mounted in the shark’s fin antenna. It sends a video feed to the rear-view mirror and is activated when you flick a small lever on the mirror housing, much like you would if you were adjusting it for night-driving. There is a noticeable amount of additional legroom in the rear but the tapering roofline can still impact on headroom for taller people.
Range Rover Evoque P250 First Edition
From: £50.,400
As tested: £51,120
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbocharged petrol Transmission: 9-speed automatic
Max power: 250PS
Max torque: 365Nm @ 1,3000rpm
Max speed: 143mph 0-60mph: 7sec
WLTP combined: 30.4 28.5mpg
Emissions (CO2): 180g/km
The Evoque is available with either diesel or petrol engines, all four-cylinder units. If it’s diesel power that you’re after, then you can have one either 147, 178 or 237bhp. Petrol engines offer outputs of 197, 246 which, as it happens, was the power plant sending drive to all four wheels of my review car through a ninespeed automatic gearbox, and 299bhp.
Despite its coupe-inspired profile the Evoque hasn’t been designed to deliver driving thrills. Tackling tight and twisty roads reveals a significant amount of body roll and a front end that lacks outright grip. The steering is a little loose in the straight-ahead position and the automatic gearbox can become a little confused when you ask it to make a lot of decisions in rapid succession.
If you bear that in mind and drive with a little more circumspection it becomes obvious that what it does do extremely well is deliver excellent levels of comfort and refinement. Even at speed on a motorway the cabin is a delightful oasis of calm. The petrol engine in my First Edition model proved inaudible while wind and road noise was also very, very well suppressed.
The new Evoque might look like an evolutionary upgrade because the company has reserved the more radical changes – and by changes I mean improvements – for both beneath the skin and inside the cabin. There’s more technology, such as ClearSight Ground View, which uses cameras in the front grille and on the door mirrors to feed a 180-degree view of the terrain ahead to the central touchscreen, and a muchimproved, higher-quality and more innovative cabin.
It isn’t perfect – some rivals are better to drive and the automatic gearbox isn’t the most intuitive – but the excellent refinement and comfort levels as well as some welcome, and much-needed, additional space in the rear of the car help to make the Evoque an even more attractive proposition.