Long live Disco: venerable 4x4 continues to make strides
FIRST REVEALED IN ’89
• In 2017, Land Rover’s fifthgeneration Discovery touches down around the world. After its reveal at the end of 2016, amid much fanfare, we’re intrigued to see what it will bring to the increasingly crowded luxury SUV market.
But how did we get to this latest Discovery, with its appdriven seats and computerized suspension? To relive the decades of Discovery thus far, we find ourselves in rural Herefordshire, close to the Welsh border, where the four previous generations of Discovery have been lined up for us to sample. Appropriately, they’re parked in the grounds of a castle. It couldn’t be more English.
Eastnor Castle sits amid a 5,000-acre deer park at the foot of the Malvern Hills and dates back to the early 19th century. Its links to Land Rover account for more almost a quarter of its history, as the manufacturer has been testing vehicles in the grounds here since 1961. Eastnor also hosts an off-road Land Rover Experience centre, one of dozens around the world, where customers and members of the public can try a Land Rover in the most challenging terrain.
Sadly, but perhaps wisely, the vehicles provided today will be getting less of a workout. As part of the Land Rover Heritage fleet, they’re kept for posterity in superb condition, and we’ve been asked to keep them on the tarmac tracks around the deer park to avoid any mishaps.
The original Discovery was first revealed to the world at the end of October 1989. It was built using the same base as the Range Rover of the time, but the style, shape and marketing was geared more toward families and practicality. After a static poke around the 2017 model, this 1991 machine feels like an agricultural vehicle. It’s a three- door, with an interior that’s almost shameful in its quality by modern standards. Even in the late ’ 80s it was hardly cutting edge; various elements were lifted from the parts bin of parent company Rover, and this particular example is drenched in hard beige plastic to match the cloth seats and carpets. The gear knob moves around in my hand, and I’m never quite sure if the handbrake is on or off. Neither position makes much difference.
It starts with a key, not a fob with fancy buttons, and the 2.5- litre, four- cylinder diesel chugs to life. For all the mockery that the interior earns, there’s a genuine mechanical engagement to the way this 25-year-old car drives, a feeling that modern cars seem disinclined to recreate. Sure, the transmission is slack and anything but the best-timed shift results in lurches as we lumber along a hilly track. But there’s something authentic and apt about its basic, utilitarian charms and its clattery approach to motion.
The first Discovery, thanks to a mid- life facelift, stayed on the market for nine years, before the second generation took its place in 1998. Although Land Rover purists were disappointed that cosmetic i mprovements removed a fraction of its offroad potential, this 2003 example is a literal showcase for its go-anywhere ambitions. It was used in South Africa during that year’s G4 Challenge, a Land Rover global adventure competition.
The interior as a whole is a big step forward, even with the faux wood trim polluting the dashboard. Electrically operated leather seats and decidedly improved plastics move toward a more luxurious feel, but the long steering and bouncy suspension remind you that this is still entirely capable of living a full life on a working farm. The soundtrack is better too, thanks to the 4.0-L Rover V8.
The jump from the second to third generation feels like the first big step toward the proper luxury appeal of the Discovery over the past decade. Introduced in 2004, and marketed as the LR3 in North America, it boasts a considerably more sophisticated platform — a monocoque on a frame chassis — and the interior eschews the outdated low-ratio lever in favour of the now- standard twist dial for different off-road settings.
This 2008 car is another G4 machine, built for the 2008/09 Challenge that never happened. Although in its orange garb it bears a close resemblance to its predecessor, it’s a world away inside and on the move. Soft-touch materials and a central screen give a far more contemporary feel, although the agricultural roots are acknowledged by making the controls big and chunky, almost like a child’s toy. The 2.7- L diesel V6 was used across the Jaguar, Land Rover and Ford fleets of the time, and with 320 pound- feet of torque, makes for more refined progress.
In seemingly no time, we’re almost up to date. The Discovery 4 was introduced in 2009 (LR4 in North America), but seven years later it still seems fresh, even accounting for the mid-life updates sported by the 2015 car we get to try. Judged from the driver’s seat — while stationary, for now — the evolution from Disco 4 to 5 is perhaps the smallest of all, even though the exterior of the new car is a step forward. That’s a big plus for the current car, which is plush, cocooned from the outside world and wafted along by a 3.0- L diesel V6 that, compared with the first generation Disco, is almost silent.
What it lacks in driver engagement and character it makes up for in a sense of quality and of almost bulletproof stability.
I know from previous experience that this model can cope with some outrageous terrain, even if we’re not allowed to test it today. Some of the switchgear feels a touch cheap by 2017 standards, but prototypes of the new Discovery suggest that will be remedied.
On one hand, the Disco 4 suggests that the new car just has to fine- tune things and bring in the latest technology to be a brilliant machine. On the other, its predecessor sets a high benchmark that it has no excuse for missing, and its ancestors are watching carefully.