Is this how the new Range Rover will look at launch in late 2012? CAR’s new artist’s impression is our best guess at the direction for Land Rover’s new range-topper.
Company sources vow the new Rangie won’t look like a bigger Evoque. ‘We want separate design themes for each range – we’re not going to do the matrioshka doll thing,’ said our insider.
Range Rover (2012): the lowdown
We’ll see the new Range Rover later in 2012. This is a once-a-decade techfest and Land Rover’s throwing the kitchen sink at it.
The new Range Rover will set the technological tone for all future full-sized Land Rovers. The new aluminium-intensive architecture being prepared for project L405 will also underpin the replacements for the Discovery and Range Rover Sport.
The new Range Rover’s new tech
We’ve heard the new hardware variously dubbed Premium Lightweight Architecture and Advanced Aluminium Architecture. Whatever the monicker, it’s been developed with help from Jaguar’s lightweight metal experts.
LR will increasingly rely on V6 power, but the trad 4.4 TDI and 5.0 petrol V8s will be offered too. A hybrid Range Rover follows in 2013-14.
All Range Rovers will feature the latest four-wheel drive with new-generation air suspension to achieve that effortless balance of S-class boulevardier one day followed by a Highland moor shooting companion the next.
Land Rover’s design chief on the new Range Rover
‘When it comes to sustainability, people talk about weight and technology, but when they see a big vehicle they instantly think that it’s bad,’ Land Rover design boss Gerry McGovern admitted to CAR. ‘What I’m looking at is how you can pare the visual robustness right down to get the visual balance, to the point where it doesn’t look overly large, but it doesn’t look anorexic either.
‘One of the things we have said we’re looking at from an engineering and packaging perspective on the next-generation Range Rover is optimising the package to get better legroom in the back. The natural thing is to grow the H points [where the occupant’s bum sits] and grow what goes round it. And actually wouldn’t it be nice with a longer tail? Well then you start to get a much bigger vehicle. We ain’t going there, we don’t want our vehicles to be any bigger.’
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