‘Sophisticated evolution’

Designer Massimo Frascella gives the guided tour

help neutralise oversteer. The system’s very effective on Jaguar’s E-Pace and F-Pace, lending the cars levels of traction, composure and agility that complement the pokier engine options beautifully. Much of Land Rover’s contextual spiel may talk of the car’s natural habitat being the urban environment rather than the rural one, with all the congestion and single-digit average speed that implies, but the Evoque promises to be a keen companion on windswept back roads.

The track winds on across the hillside, rough but grippy, and the Evoque relishes my inappropriate speed. The taut steering – here in combination with 20-inch wheels – feels good and swells confidence, while the car’s grown-up refinement salves my worries about breaking Higgins’ precious prototype. I can tell the going’s rough but its lumpiness is heavily filtered by the time it reaches us. At the same time the revised nine-speed auto gearbox is fluid and intuitive, prompting you to leave it to its own devices rather than get involved.

As with the first Evoque, the more you drive, the more the SUV-ness of it gets left behind: it may look like one but as you gel with it so it morphs into a kind of lofty warm hatch, one blessed with the pliancy and wheel travel to smooth even the most careworn B-roads. If it has lost a little of its outright composure and body control along the way, we haven’t the grip or the space to find out here.

‘I HAVE A LITTLE joke with our dealers,’ Land Rover design director Gerry McGovern tells me, a mischievous smile on his lips. ‘I say to them, “You can tell it’s an Evoque – it’s even got the little window at the back you can’t see out of…”

‘In a way, that alone is proof of the way in which the original LRX changed our business,’ continues McGovern. ‘It was commercially successful and it helped the business understand that designers had a key role to play in making our vehicles more desirable. It would have been obvious to make the rear window bigger – lift the roof, lower the belt line – but then you’re losing the impact of those key4

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME M C GOVERN’S REPLACED ONE OF HIS OWN CARS

ingredients. Take them away and you end up with normality. So we challenged the engineers to come up with a solution, and they have [ClearSight rear-view mirror, see p55]. I’ve been a very vocal supporter of technology as an enabler of design, and not just technology for the sake of it.’ McGovern and I are talking at the Evoque’s global unveiling. The new Evoque’s swapped the camouflage and mud of Eastnor for Nolita Grey paint under lights and the hipster playground of Shoreditch. The new car looks comfortable here, and more convincingly a Range Rover than its predecessor; sleeker, more sophisticated, more expensive, and with panel gaps you can’t prod even a persistent pinkie into.

I put it to McGovern that this car’s evolutionary design is a product of the fact that the new Evoque is the first time he’s replaced one of his own cars.

‘This is the first time, but I approached it more with affection than trepidation – I don’t really get nervous any more,’ he smiles. ‘I told the designers that I didn’t want them forgetting the first car – there’s always the temptation to start again. We needed to remember that there’s a large following for this vehicle, and that the Evoque still

sticks out from the crowd. For me it was about taking the same ingredients and refining them, making them more relevant. The reductive approach you saw on the Velar wasn’t really possible when we did the first Evoque – we were limited by the technology; the precision and sophistication of the surfaces, the panel gaps. Our ability to do that now drove the design of the new car to a degree. This is recognisably an Evoque, but the next generation. The less design-literate might say, “It looks the same.” Well, look at it properly.’ Was the designer in McGovern happy to play safe? ‘Let’s be clear: this decision wasn’t at board level – it was above that. When it comes to the design decision-making process at Land Rover it’s Mr [Ratan] Tata, it’s Ralf [Speth] and it’s me. Design at Land Rover cannot be by committee. The discussion was between that small group, and I was the one saying this needs to evolve. Mr Tata and Ralf, they have their views, but whether they’re talking to Ian [Callum] at Jaguar or me at Land Rover, Mr Tata will say, “That’s my opinion but you’re the expert. It’s your decision.” And I’m comfortable with that.

‘There’s still nothing quite like it on the road, even though the Chinese have copied it exactly! The 911, the Range Rover – these are icons but not many vehicles are. I’m not saying this car is an icon yet. But the 911 and Range Rover have both evolved beautifully over time. This car had to be both new and yet unmistakably Evoque.’

The shockwaves of the Evoque’s 2011 arrival are still being felt. Then, the waiting list stretched into next year and, while we didn’t know it at the time, the car’s sheer desirability would help Land Rover get away with the kind of luxury-brand price premium that’s since pushed some of its transactional prices north of £300k (on the two-door Range Rover SV Coupe). First-generation Evoque sales were in excess of 100,000 units per year from the get-go, peaked in 2014 at 125,000 and are homing in on 800,000 in total as the car’s phased out.

Like the Range Rover, the Porsche 911 is the envy of rivals everywhere for the deftness with which it has, for decades, balanced timelessness and modernity. Range Rover may yet find itself with a second icon on its hands.

‘The changes are in the details. We have fewer roof joins [laser-welded, for a cleaner nish and fewer faults] and no wheelarch cladding this time, to re ect that this is a more roadorientated car that talks to an urban, design-literate consumer’ ‘The tapering feature line brings drama, as does the extreme ratio to the rear screen, while the trademark clamshell bonnet leads the eye into the side vent – a nod to the rst-gen Evoque’ ‘Evoque has always been about a show car appearance on the road. Key to this are the falling roof [fortunately, Land Rover’s numbers suggest 70 per cent of Evoque owners don’t have kids], the rising belt line and the powerful shoulders for a car of this type’

‘The extended wheelbase with short overhangs, particularly at the rear, helps give this really planted look, with a wheel at each corner. We also have wheels of up to 21 inches, which is a remarkable size for a car like this’

‘The nav reckons there’s a Starbucks just down here, on the left…’