‘WILL ITS LAUDABLE AESTHETIC RESTRAINT RENDER IT INVISIBLE?’

There was a moment of quite exquisite awkwardness during the new Range Rover preview. The silk came off and the rapturous applause... well, it didn’t happen. Just sweet, sweet silence as the cover swished noiselessly to the floor. Finally, after what felt like aeons, it broke out, initiated by Land Rover’s own people.

That’s the price you pay for making the wheel a little rounder rather than re-inventing it. But I buy into the rationale. The Range Rover is one of the world’s few other Porsche 911s, and there’s a good reason each generation of that icon only glacially evolves what has gone before, visually at least.

Underneath, this generation of Range Rover is nothing like the previous one (unlike this generation of 911, which is a lot like the previous one). The new structure and rear-wheel steering will, I’m sure, transform the driving experience, though the current car’s so damn big it is its size that’s often the limiting factor on UK roads, rather than any dynamic shortcoming. And though the plug-in hybrid’s impressive, I can’t help wishing the all-electric Rangie, for which I have sky-high hopes, was imminent and not due in 2024, so quickly are the world and its attitudes shifting.

For now, though, I’m cautiously optimistic, my only real fears that interior quality won’t be where it needs to be (the existing car doesn’t come close to the Bentayga’s reassuringly expensive opulence) and that this Range Rover’s laudable aesthetic restraint will render it all but invisible as the world’s wealthy clamour for something less tasteful.