HAVING A BALL WITH THE DISCO
You’ll be dancing in the street if you get your hands on new luxury Land Rover
Maggie Barry
The much-anticipated new Land Rover Discovery is finally on our roads and it’s been worth the wait.
It is a really good- looking car, lighter than its predecessor by 460kg but built to take families with a full seven seats.
Designer Gerry McGovern has softened it at the front but in profile it is still the big boxy beast we have come to know and love, sitting on wonderful 21in alloys.
We drove it around Loch Lomond and took it off- roading at the Land Rover Experience in Dunkeld to see just how tough it was – and it passed every test with f lying colours.
Since mid-February, Land Rover have had more than 30,000 orders globally for the Disco, with 20,000 expressions of interest in the UK and 8000 orders placed. They are on a roll.
Behind that is the amazing piece of kit they have created with this car. As a mark of just how capable and versatile the new Disco is, Land Rover say it can knock spots off what the out-ofproduction Defender could do – and in much more luxury.
It is beautifully finished inside with leather and, in some cases, wood headlining.
There are seven big comfortable seats with an option for a massage feature. The two back rows go up and down at the touch of a button and you can even lower or raise them remotely.
Electronic air suspension means you glide along the roads and the eight-speed automatic transmission is a dream.
Land Rover have an excellent infotainment system that connects to wifi and the Disco can connect eight devices at the same time. It comes with storage for four iPads, nine USB ports, six 12v charging points and five Isofix mountings on the outer seats. The towing figure has been upgraded and will pull 3.5 tons, the legal maximum for a vehicle of this kind. The drive is wonderful. I took the wheel of the 2.0-litre diesel and the 3.0- litre diesel and both proved impressive. I preferred the 3.0-litre but that is a personal choice. For me, it seemed the better match for the big car but there are those who would opt for the 2.0-litre, especially if this car is not going to be doing a lot of work in the country but is perhaps more for urban and short rural trips.
But if you need something to get you over the fields, through the burns and up the hill, this is your car.
We took it in the all-terrain low mode, with hill descent switched on, over some tough obstacles including a massive hump where only two wheels were diagonal ly on the ground – and it did not flinch. Going down steep shale, it inched itself safely to the bottom and on the up it was just as tenacious.
Needless to say, the residuals are very strong on this car so, as well as being a great vehicle which is fun to drive, it is also going to hold on to its value. A winner in every way.