GARY PUSEY
The Enthusiast
“Clarkson stated the TDV8 Vogue was the best car in the world, but then he probably had a new one”
This morning I woke up in the automotive 21st century. Yes, I have bought a modern Land Rover. Well, modern to me, anyway. After months of deliberation and procrastination, a couple of breakdowns, some helpful hints from my wife and daughter who were stranded with me in County Waterford for an unexpected additional night in a hotel at the end of our holiday, and some recent lengthy and rather sedate drives to Sutherland and the Hebrides, I have finally taken the plunge.
The 1994 Range Rover 300Tdi has just ground its way past 170,000 miles, and I have decided to augment it with something that will hopefully do these regular, long, and invariably fullyloaded trips in a bit more comfort and with a tad more grunt. It was Jeremy Clarkson who famously stated that the TDV8 Vogue was the best car in the world and the best 4x4. But then he probably had a new one.
The idea is that the Tdi will remain my local runabout, while the L322 will be reserved for those endless slogs where I’m hoping its significant increase in power will be welcome. That’s the theory, anyway, although everyone I talk to about it is predicting I will sell the Tdi pretty quickly.
A friend called me to say he had decided to sell his L322, which is a 2011 Phase Five model from the last year of production; the fourth-generation L405 having ousted it in mid-2012. I’ve known Trevor for over 30 years and never met anyone who is such a perfectionist and quite so fastidious about his cars, so I’m hoping the Range Rover will prove to be a good one.
He has owned it for several years, and is only selling now because he has bought a Mercedes luxo-barge. Big Mercs and Range Rovers have always been his thing and he seems to alternate between the two. The L322 has done 92,000 miles, but it was given a brand-new engine under warranty 30,000 miles ago. It has a full main dealer service history, a new set of tyres, a tow-pack and a year’s MOT. All the electrics seem to work, or at least those I have managed to master so far do. And it’s in one of my favourite colours, Orkney Grey.
My family have already given it a name: ‘Efty’. That’s because it had a private plate on it with the letters EFT and because it looked decidedly hefty parked next to the Tdi, which is positively dainty by comparison. The L322 is an amazing 20 inches longer, ten inches wider and four inches taller that the classic.
The engine performance figures are even more startling: the TDV8 generates 309 horses and 516 pounds-foot of torque. The 300Tdi auto has 122 and 210 respectively, which explains why it won’t pull the skin off a rice pudding, slows down on hills and has glacial acceleration. None of which is an issue when I am pottering around the local lanes, but it really does matter when you have 500 miles of motorway to cover before dinner.
And then there’s the technology. The classic is pretty much a tech-free zone. Not even an engine ECU to worry about. The L322, on the other hand, has a lot of tech. It is truly astonishing to consider the extent of the change (I am reserving judgement just now, before I use the word progress) that has happened during the 17 years that separate the two vehicles.
The L322 has a very sophisticated electrical system, with a high-speed Controlled Area Network and a fibre-optic Media Oriented System Transport network serving the infotainment system. I hope they both enjoy a long and trouble-free life. I do like the dual-view centre screen that allows the driver and passenger to see different displays, a world first when it was introduced. I’m not so sure about the 12 inch Thin Film Transistor display with virtual dials that replaces the traditional instrument panel, though.
The car is also fully-loaded with TLAS (Three Letter Acronyms) and I plan to spend much of the winter months exploring exactly what each of them does. So far I’ve discovered EBA (Emergency Brake Assist), EBF (Electronic Brakeforce Distribution), DSC (Dynamic Stability Control), ETC (Electronic Traction Control), HDC (Hill Descent Control) with extra HSA (Hill Start Assist), GRC (Gradient Release Control) and GAC (Gradient Acceleration Control). There’s also EUC (Enhanced Understeer Control), RSC (Roll Stability Control), ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control), SCS (Surround Camera System) and TIC (Transmission Idle Control). There could well be a few dozen more lurking about that I haven’t yet found. Anyway, the car does at least seem to be happy to let me drive it without interfering too much.
But now that I come to think of it, I have had a tenuous foot in the automotive 21st century already, although I can’t say that it felt like it. I’m referring to the 2001 P38A that I bought secondhand when it was three-years old and ran for a few years before the transmission imploded. I hope my L322 adventure doesn’t end in a similar way…
Gary Pusey is co-author of Range Rover The First Fifty, trustee of The Dunsfold Collection and a lifelong Land Rover enthusiast. What this man doesn’t know, isn’t worth knowing!