It may look like a big metal box, but it’s a box with class, style and power. Actually, it’s both more elegant and more agile than this description can allow. Forget people carriers – the Discovery seats seven comfortably and has all the sturdy engineering you’d expect for a vehicle which is as happy off the road as on it.
Whilst it doesn’t have quite the same degree of opulence as the Range Rover, it virtually matches it. It’s very spacious and it’s hardly basic: reasonably priced it may be, but it has more than a hint of luxury. You’ll get a very smooth ride on the road and a very robust one off it, a fact which can be accounted for by the extraordinary suspension technology. The Land Rover Discovery combines a monocoque chassis to deliver a good on-road drive, and a ladder-frame chassis to handle the pummelling of the off-road experience. Whilst this makes it heavy, the air suspension and superb steering undoubtedly help to create a nimble and responsive drive.
The seating is generously sized (all seven of them, if you go for the bigger model). The two rear seats in the seven-seater fold flat, making the boot space enormous (an ample 535 litres) and you can even have a go at pretending it’s a van: all the passenger seats fold flatly away. With a car this heavy, you wouldn’t expect great fuel consumption, but the TDV6 hits a respectable 30 miles per gallon.
