Sport star
The schoolrun has just got more interesting
he new Land Rover Discovery Sport has exceptional door seals. I know this because a 60mph crosswind is currently trying to insert a million snowfakes through any gaps the bodywork might present, and not one is getting through. This is Iceland, and right now the conditions are not as pleasant as the ones you see in these pictures. The weather gods are angry, so we’re sufering conditions they only expect to see twice a winter.
Not every component is faring as well as the door seals. The satnav has given up on us several times, and the wind is strong enough to cram so much snow under the
Twiper arms that they’ve lifted of the screen. We’re just dragging ice back and forth. If we open a window, it’s like a confetti bomb has gone of, and as the snow melts the demister is maxed out.
You’d think we were on a development drive, destruction-testing prototypes, but in fact this is the ofcial launch of the Discovery Sport, and there’s lots more you need to know about it other than that the door seals can hold their own in a gale.
It is, of course, the replacement for the Freelander, the name change a necessity given Land Rover’s realignment, with the Discovery brand housing all the functional family vehicles while Range Rover does the luxe stuf. Defender, well, it’s yet to be
Light signature is striking and replicates points of the compass 8-inch touchscreen is standard, but still not
good enough confrmed what the future holds there, or whether the Disco and Disco Sport will get some sort of sibling as well.
The Discovery Sport is based on the Evoque – same engines and gearboxes, similar platform and price point. But it’s bigger and cleverer, more attuned to family life, able to cope with holidays as well as the school drop-of. When it goes on sale in the UK at the end of January, it will have seven seats as standard, and each of them has its own USB slot – life support for kids.
The decision to engineer seven seats necessitated a wholesale rethink of the Evoque’s rear suspension, not to mention cramming an extra 80mm into the wheelbase. So, from the B-pillar backwards, the Disco Sport has precious little in common with the Evoque; in fact, the aft suspension has much more in common with the Range Rover, “We looked at a couple of solutions, but ended up going with the poshest,” vehicle programme director Paul Cleaver tells me.
In the midst of all this newness is a familiar engine. The 2.2-litre SD4 is familiar from the Evoque, and it’s the only power unit – at least for the time being. There’s no petrol model being ofered in the UK (although the 2.0-litre turbo Si4 will be sold in some foreign markets),