Life in a British castle on four wheels. Fortunately, the new Range Rover is still the same

The Range Rover is one of the lucky automotive kids of the 1960s. At that time, a company’s designers were able to come up with a completely new concept and create something other brands didn’t have. In this case, add on-road comfort to the off-road chassis, luxurious workmanship to the practically designed cabin and a refined engine for hard work.

Yes, both the Japanese and the Americans have managed to make something like a Range Rover. But so far there is only one real Range Rover. And you can see it at a glance. It retains familiar lines and proportions, aristocratic pride and a determination to break through the ground. If you find photos of the British royal family on a picnic, it’s never without a Range Rover.

The fifth generation has grown up a little bit again. In the basic version it measures just over five meters in length, of which three fall on the step. The elongated design adds another twenty centimeters to both and, as the dark green car shows in the images, allows for the installation of a third row of seats. Not that it’s the biggest car in the world, but no one else is bigger.

Inside, the British classic ditched the old-fashioned style of its predecessors, bet on modernity and more careful processing of details, and it worked well. The cabin has the atmosphere of a Parisian boutique and is not lacking in aesthetic and purely functional finesse. For example, the speakers hidden in the front headrests emit opposite phase sound waves for active noise reduction. When you plug in your phone, calls are transferred right here, so loved ones are literally spitting in your ear.

British engineers have long been fighting for the clarity of the communication system and so far it cannot be said that they have finally won. You still have to scroll a lot on the screen, but there would be room for a rotary control on the large center panel. We also didn’t find a split mode of a large map and smaller icons for music, phone, or other functions. Oh God, even Hyundai has been able to do this for a long time.

As expected, the seats are great. At the front, you probably won’t know if you’ve crossed the whole of Europe or the whole of Africa. In the second row, passengers also enjoy superior comfort, including electric backrest adjustment, and adults can sit behind them as well. The high body allows the third row seats to be anchored reasonably at the top.

The size of the suitcase is best described in the photos. The lid is traditionally in two parts. The fold-down bottom serves as a bench to sit on while hunting or viewing the scenery, while the top protects you from the rain. However, this added value takes precedence over loading and removing deep-seated baggage, which is not facilitated by the two-part arrangement.

If you want to understand why Queen Elizabeth has been seen so often behind the wheel of a Range Rover, you have to drive her for a while. Comfort is absolutely heavenly, as is isolation from all external evil. Whether you are driving on the pavement or on concrete panels, there is no smell inside.

Control is facilitated by the position of the driver’s captain high above the surrounding traffic. The Range Rover is actually the only SUV that lives up to the legend of safe visibility. Following the long hood and knowing clearly where it ends is useful not only on difficult terrain, but also in the city. Maneuvers are facilitated by the steering rear axle, thanks to which the large ship turns in the same radius as a normal car.

The fact that most SUV owners never leave the safety of paved roads does not worry the designers of the Range Rover. According to them, even the few adventurers deserve top-notch off-road skills. A reducer, center and rear differential locks and several electronic stabilization programs are just the beginning.

When the compressor fully inflates the air suspension bellows, the ground clearance reaches an incredible thirty centimeters. Five more than the Mercedes G-Class. So the Range Rover will travel 90 centimeters deep. It has a sensor and shows you the level on the screen.

Perfectly quiet and powerful engines with smooth automatic transmission are already a matter of course. The dark green extended version is powered by a three-liter D350 diesel with a herd of three hundred and fifty horsepower. In the real world, it can do whatever is really necessary. It has mountains of flexibility, top performance and selected methods and consumes between nine and ten liters of diesel.

If that’s not enough, you can pay extra for an eight-cylinder petrol engine. It gives the 2.7-ton machine an unexpectedly lively touch with acceleration to 100 km / h in 4.6 seconds, accompanied by the menacing growl of a hunting dog. Each trip is an experience, paid for with a consumption of fourteen liters or more.

Which brings us back to the original Range Rover idea. It’s not just about his noble or snobbish status. If you want to have space in a car almost like a Volkswagen Multivan, the comfort of a Mercedes S-Class, better off-road skills than a Toyota Land Cruiser and an engine with the temperament of a Bavarian, the price will be similar to the sum of the vehicles mentioned. .

The cheapest Range Rover D250 costs 3.3 million crowns, the seven-seater version of the D350 at the top of the Autobiography set-up is a million more expensive. The eight-cylinder petrol engine in the shorter version will cost 4.5 million, and for both cars the importer has added another sixty thousand for the wheels and thirty thousand for the metalwork.