DISCOVERY AT 30 An off-roader for both town and country
Three decades on, as the Range Rover heads into the stratosphere, its rugged brother is ready to seal classic status
In 1980s rural life, the choice for your two-car garage was simple. The first was a Land Rover Series, Ninety or One-ten, which was your workhorse to put in the hard yards. Paired with that was a Range Rover, the horse on which to canter into town. It could comfortably substitute for the Land Rover when needed, but, more importantly, it could get you over any early treacherous ground you might encounter before cruising down the highway in leather-clad, air-conditioned luxury.
By 1989 the world was different, and Land Rover could no longer rely on two models to keep itself afloat. It had shuffled around within British Leyland and Rover Group, keeping its head above water, but suffered a drop in production from more than 50,000 units a year to barely 40,000 in the 1980s. Imports from marques that were more familiar with sushi than Solihull had begun to flourish, not least the Toyota Land Cruiser and Mitsubishi Shogun. Yet while sales of what would become the Defender dropped, those of the Range Rover were on the up, doubling its (albeit modest) production. The market had changed, or was at least changing.
Enter the hybrid. Called Discovery, it would do both jobs: the hard yards and the classy work.
On the face of it, Land Rover was committing that oh-so-bl practice of brand suicide, producing a new car that would render its two stable products obsolete in one fell swoop. Why own two when you can have one that did the job of both? Instead, it was the making of Land Rover, taking the company’s production past the magic 100,000-units-a-year mark and almost in an instant matching the production figures the Defender had taken four decades to achieve.
Plush Land Rovers were nothing new, mind. From 1971 buyers could add fresh-air heaters to their Series IIIS, and even as far back as the Series I there was the option of winding windows on the Tickford Station Wagon. The Range Rover, launched in 1970 in two-door form like a coupé on stilts and with discs all round, was meanwhile becoming increasingly luxurious, with coil springs for greater comfort, permanent four-wheel drive and lighter axles.
By the late 1980s it, too, was well overdue a revamp, which makes the introduction of a parallel Discovery programme even more remarkable and ambitious – and the runaway success of both even more impressive.
‘Project Jay’, as the nascent Discovery was known, would be the car to fill the widening chasm between the Defender and Range Rover, and was first mooted in 1986. Signed off by ’87, the names Highlander and the Prairie Rover were considered and thrown away, and within three years the Discovery was making waves in the press and with buyers. The P38A Range Rover would follow suit five years later.
At the Earls Court Motorfair in 1989, Land Rover displayed its first new model for two decades. Standing beside its bizarre cutaway roof, Top Gear presenter Chris Goffey could be heard to declare that: “The shape rather reminds me of the old Talbot Rancho.”
Like the Range Rover, the Discovery was launched with only two doors – three if you count the side-hinged tailgate – but was always intended to be a four-door. The idea, according to Jaguar Land Rover historian Michael Bishop, was to present the right impression and ensure it was perceived correctly: “That way it would be seen as a lifestyle product, almost as a coupé. It was absolutely the right thing to do.
“The first Range Rover being a two-door, 20 years before, was a true white-space product. Nobody had done anything like it, there was no market segment; they came up with a gentleman’s off-road sports car that evolved into a luxury vehicle. Originally you were supposed to be able to go to work, hose it out and go and take your better half out for dinner in it.”
The Discovery was to be nearly as refined, more rugged, and half the price. Large armchair seats commanded the front, ahead of the seemingly sky-high roofline of the tail, with windows aplenty – including ‘Alpine’ skylights – and twin sunroofs. The overwhelming impression is one of the seven-seater Disco being ideal for dropping the kids off at school, on the way to picking up supplies; for true village life with the family. Gone would be the days of sitting on the wheelarches like in a Defender, and there would be no need for Range Rover-style preciousness with the interior. This was a place for muddy football kits, dogs and afternoons out.
Only the many grabhandles dotted around the cabin – from the headrests to the top of the lipped thin dash – remind travellers that this is
a car as used to being off beaten tracks as it is on them, that shortcuts can be taken across fields with ease, and snow days will be defeated.
The interior by Conran Design Group was an early example of outsourcing expertise, its Sonar Blue contrasting against a paler hue. From the outside looking in, the tinted windscreen creates a strange blue-filter impression. There was even a shoulder bag included, supposedly for the sunroof panels but also for trips out. What jumps out most – aside from this diesel version’s lack of power – is the comfort and vision. The glasshouse shrinks the car yet somehow it doesn’t feel dated; its simplicity has helped it stand the test of time. Externally it’s still an attractive thing, too, with no need to feel old on its 30th birthday. The shape was created using computer-aided design, a first for Land Rover, and proved chic enough to land the Discovery a Style Council award.
Stepping up and in to a later Disco 1 doesn’t date an early one, either: it still feels familiar but tweaked, though the dash has grown in depth and height to accommodate airbags, the steering wheel is chunkier and the instrument panel slightly reworked. The many modern SUVS that the Discovery helped spawn might out-tech this car now, but they’ll never match the feel and connection provided by an early Disco.
There is a nagging feeling that this is little more than a Range Rover for the masses – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Beneath the tall body lies the same ladder chassis and the same pre-’88 drivetrain and lockable centre diff. They used the same windscreen, too, while the doorhandles are from the Marina and the rear lights are Freight Rover. “The logo in them eventually changed,” points out Bishop.
There was innovation to be found up front in the 200Tdi, one of the first mass-produced turbocharged direct-injection diesels. Codenamed ‘Project Gemini’, the product of three years’ development was far tougher than the previous turbodiesel iteration, with a strengthened block and a new, intercooled Garrett T25 turbo. That meant claims of an acceptable 30mpg. Its 2.5 litres produced a wheezy 111bhp, topping out – on what would need to be a very long and straight road – at 92mph.
A 3.5-litre V8 petrol variant was also available at launch, Rover’s famous Buick-derived powerplant soldiering on into the ’90s, but most opted for the 850-mile range of the diesel.
To prove its off-road abilities the 200Tdi became the official vehicle of the 1990 Camel Trophy, which moved from the rainforest to the remote Taiga Forest of Siberia. It swallowed the 1600km route accompanied by a gaggle of
Defenders, but the real prototype development (undertaken in Range Rover disguise) had taken place in the UK and Australia, plus Death Valley for high-heat and Canada for -40ºc testing.
The Discovery would spend seven years as the Trophy’s poster boy, four with the 200Tdi and three with the later 300Tdi, ending only when the Discovery 2 was being primed for release. Then Land Rover’s Freelander took over but, unlike with the Disco, each team needed a Defender ‘Sherpa’ to carry their gear…
By 1990 the Discovery had gained an extra pair of doors, a Lucas-injected V8, and electric windows, central locking and air-conditioning in the ES model, the release of the new Range Rover having freed up such luxuries without cannibalising its own. Five years later, after the launch of a facelifted five-speed, Discovery sales accounted for more than two-thirds of Land Rover production, eventually shifting close to 400,000 units before the Disco 2 was unveiled.
A very prescient Autocar wrote: ‘By marrying Range Rover ability with sub-shogun pricing, Land Rover has come up with perhaps the most potent statement of all in the off-road market… An almost perfect synthesis of flair and practicality and British-ness. A world-beater.’ Instead of suicide, it brought salvation. Its time may just have come again, too. As Toyota FJS and Ford Broncos command vast sums of money Stateside, wobbling around in a comfortable Land Rover is surely the British equivalent – and current sub-£5k prices make that a very appealing proposition.
‘There is a nagging feeling that this is little more than a Range Rover for the masses – but there’s nothing wrong with that’