Happy Birthday
This month marks the 30th birthday of the Discovery. Despite a difficult delivery, it grew up to be a best-seller that changed the fortunes of Land Rover, as Dave Phillips explains
As the Discovery turns 30, Dave Phillips takes a look back at some of the model’s highlights
PLYMOUTH Hoe is a grassy field overlooking Plymouth Sound and is best known as the place where Sir Francis Drake insisted on finishing a game of bowls one afternoon in 1588 before sailing out to defeat the Spanish Armada. But to Land Rover fans it is also where the motoring press were first allowed to test drive the Discovery, almost exactly four centuries later.
For it was here, in the autumn of 1989, that Land Rover rolled the dice and hoped that the new vehicle it had unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show – a month earlier, on September 16 – would be a success with the influential hacks. If it wasn’t, the prospects for the troubled company were unthinkable.
The fact that Plymouth was known as the City of Discovery was a good omen. Even the heavy rain that slanted down during the launch turned out to be a bonus, because it made the new vehicles’ off-road prowess across the mist-shrouded bogs and rocks of Dartmoor all the more impressive. The favourable press reviews that ensued must have been followed by deep sighs of relief at
Solihull, because this was a vehicle produced against all odds.
The background to the Discovery story starts in the 1970s, with most of the once-proud British motor industry in terminal decline. The exception was Land Rover, which had bucked the trend with the original Land Rover of 1948 and had strengthened its position further with the 1970 launch of the Range Rover. Both these Solihull products were highly-profitable, but by now Land Rover had become part of the nationalised British Leyland and these profits were ploughed into propping up the ailing parts of the BL empire – most notoriously the volume car makers Austin and Morris, which made some poor cars that were disastrously unprofitable.
As a result, development of Land Rover’s two existing models was stymied by lack of cash and the company was unable to react to the growing number of Japanese rivals producing 4x4s that were cheaper – and often better-equipped – than anything Lode Lane could produce.
Land Rover’s MD, Tony Gilroy, appointed in 1983, fought hard for investment. A third model, to fill the gap between Land Rover and Range Rover, was needed urgently to take on the Toyota Land Cruisers and Nissan Patrols. But money was so tight that in September 1986 BL had to choose between developing a new MG sports car or creating a
third Land Rover model. Happily the BL Board voted for the Land Rover – mainly because it could built on the cheap, by using the existing Range Rover platform.
Gilroy was granted a miserly £25 million to develop the new model, but work began later that year on what was known as Project Jay. Although the new model got the running gear of the Range Rover, it was simplified to avoid encroaching into the Range Rover’s upmarket territory.
At the same time, Project Gemini was in progress, creating a new family of engines for Land Rover. The original plan was to produce petrol and diesel variants, but the turbocharged diesel they came up with was so good that the rest were forgotten. It developed 111 bhp at 4000 rpm and 195 lb-ft at 1800 rpm, making it perfect for towing and offroad driving. It was the 200Tdi and was the best engine Land Rover had ever built. Without it, it is doubtful if Discovery would have been a success.
Only a three-door version was at first available, but the contemporary styling by Conran Design marked it out as a vehicle of its time, even if it does look a bit dated these days with its stark plastic interior and gaudy vinyl body decals.
By the time of its launch, Land Rover had been privatised by British Aerospace, who rescued it from cash-strapped BL in 1988, but were actually somewhat short of the readies, themselves. But putting the new 200Tdi under the bonnets of the Land Rover (renamed Defender to avoid confusion with the Discovery) and Range Rover models gave them a boost, too, and more money started to flow in when the new Discovery became Europe’s best-selling 4x4.
In 1991 Discovery won a British Design Award – a deserved accolade for a car that had opened up a new motoring genre: the leisure-orientated 4x4. By then a five-door version was also available.
V8 and underpowered four-cylinder Mpi petrol engines were also options, but none were as popular as the 200Tdi, which was replaced by the smoother 300Tdi in 1994 – the same year that BAE sold the company to BMW for £800 million.
The new German owners immediately started work on a replacement for the original Discovery. When it arrived in 1998, Discovery 2 looked very much like its predecessor. BMW tried to pretend that was because the company’s attitudetochangewasevolutionaryratherthanrevolutionary, but that was a smokescreen for the fact D2 was developed on the cheap because the development fund was mainly devoted to the original Freelander, launched a year earlier.
Thus Discovery 2 still sat on an old-fashioned steel ladder chassis and, in order to accommodate a third row of forwardfacing seats, the new model got a massive rear overhang that both looked ugly and restricted its off-road ability. Because it had traction control, Land Rover didn’t fit a central diff lock. But it was soon offered as an optional extra after enthusiasts kicked up a fuss about its omission.
The D2 was nothing special to look at, but under its bonnet lurked an engine of rare beauty. The Tdis were a hard act to follow, but the five-pot common rail – the last engine ever designed and built by Land Rover – was brilliant, producing more power and low-down torque than its predecessors.
In fact, the second-generation was a great car but for its Achille’s Heel – the chassis. By now Land Rover had cured the body rot that afflicted the Discovery 1, but had neglected to properly treat the upper side of the rear chassis, where corrosion thrived, hidden by the bodywork. By the time the problem was identified, the rust was often terminal, with owners facing the choice of scrapping or buying a new chassis. (Tip: a D2 on a galvanised chassis is a pretty formidable, future-proof investment.)
By the time Discovery 3 was launched, in 2004, Land Rover was again under new ownership – this time by Ford, who thankfully bought out the business from BMW. I say thankfully because the Germans’ secret orders to Discovery’s designers were to make sure the new model wasn’t as good as the BMW X5. Thankfully, under new owners Ford, they were able to disregard the barmy German masterplan and start again with a blank sheet of paper.
Like the original Discovery, the D3 shared much of its running gear with the contemporary Range Rover (in this case the L322), including the generous 113.5-inch wheelbase, which provided ample space for a seven-seater without a massive rear overhang. It still employed a separate chassis
frame, but had been updated with independent suspension all round. It came with a choice of coil springs or selflevelling air suspension.
Off-road, the Disco 3 was a revelation, because this was the first Land Rover model to feature Terrain Response — the advanced electronic system that allowed the driver to turn a knob to dial in the optimum throttle and suspension settings required for tackling differing terrains – and which has been a staple of all Land Rovers built ever since.
Naturally, everyone outside Germany was thrilled that the Discovery 3’s versatility and combination of on-road comfort and unrivalled off-road ability blew the BMW X5 out of the water.
Its new integrated body frame construction was known as the T5 platform, which it shared with Range Rover Sport, a year later. The only downside of Discovery 3’s combination of traditional chassis and load-bearing body meant that it was heavy – weighing 300 kilos more than its L322 Range Rover stablemate, which meant fuel consumption was high, too. But with bulk came stability and D3 took towing ability to the next level.
The four-millionth Land Rover drove off the end of the production line at Solihull in May 2007. It was a Discovery 3 and it was donated to the Born Free Foundation, a wildlife charity, whose celebrity patron, the actress Joanna Lumley, turned up at the factory to collect it. A month later, Ford announced that it planned to sell Land Rover and its Jaguar stablemate. The winning bidder was Tata of India, who paid £2.3 billion on completion, in June 2008
The first new model launched under the new regime was Discovery 4, in 2009. Back then, any new Land Rover launch was still a rare treat, but on this occasion most Land Rover enthusiasts were a bit underwhelmed. That was because it didn’t half look like the outgoing Discovery 3.
Although the two models shared the same platform and body panels, there was one difference: reliability. Disco 3 had suffered some minor electrical gremlins caused mainly by water ingress, but it was not the sort of stuff expected by folk who had paid good money for what was a high-end car. Those problems were soon sorted and the D3 went on to provide largely trouble-free service for its many satisfied owners, but by now the internet was having an effect on buying habits and D3’s earlier reputation for unreliability was online for all to see – and that’s probably why what was essentially a facelift of the Discovery 3 was craftily renumbered by Land Rover as the Discovery 4, in order to distance it from the outgoing model.
Of course that isn’t what Land Rover said at the time. The official line was different. At the launch of new-look Disco 3 – sorry, the Discovery 4 – in 2009, MD Phil Popham said: “The outgoing Discovery 3 has well over 100 international awards to its name, but we’ve found ways to improve virtually every aspect of the vehicle’s design and engineering — some subtle, some major. New design signals comprehensive engineering change under the skin, and now gives us the Discovery 4.” So there.
Discovery 4 remained in production until the darkest year in Land Rover history. I’m talking about 2016, when Defender production ended and D4 was replaced by another bland creation from the Gerry Mcgovern collection of cars that all look very similar yet have one thing in common: they don’t look like Land Rovers ought to. Sadly, I can’t even call the newcomer Discovery 5, because for some reason Land Rover doesn’t want it associated with its illustrious predecessors, Discos 1,2, 3 and 4. Perhaps they all looked too much like proper Land Rovers?
There was a time when a Land Rover Discovery was a model that stood out from the crowd. In my humble opinion, new Discovery does the opposite: it blends into the crowd – the crowd of lookalike models that are one man’s homogenised vision of how Land Rovers of the future should look. But car design is a Marmite subject: you either love ’em or hate ’em. So if you think Discovery (5) is lovely, then I respect your view.
Anyway, I cannot end this on a sour note. Let’s be positive and remind ourselves that the 30-year success story that has been the best-selling Discovery has not only saved Land Rover, but the profits it generated allowed all those funnylooking new models to proliferate.