Range Rover 2010 model year review

Pity the plight of senior car designers. These days they jump ship with such alarming frequency that they invariably find themselves fighting to keep a straight face while reaping compliments and castigation for new models to which they contributed precisely zero.

This, of course, cuts both ways. With Ian Callum already installed at Jaguar, for instance, his replacement Henrik Fisker was able to soak up the plaudits for the former's Aston Martin DB9.

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By contrast, it seems inevitable that Gerry McGovern will have left Land Rover long before the world discovers that nobody over the age of 14 will be able to sit in the back of his impending reverse Tardis (the LRX concept) without rubbing off all their hair on the roof lining.

Since somebody, somewhere decided that the general public has the attention span of hot-buttered toast, treats cars like white goods and expects a favourite model to be facelifted every 28 minutes, there is at least a fighting chance that the man responsible will actually have to accompany his latest creation to the launch. Such was the case with the 2010 Range Rover, and it's a pity McGovern opted not to break cover because I really, really wanted a word...

To date, the best thing about a Range Rover has been its cocktail of imperious boulevard behaviour and leap-tall-buildings-at-a-single-bound off-road capability, all wrapped within a relatively discreet, dignified and gently aristocratic couture. Given the car's status as the world's fastest maisonette, this is no mean feat. But then Land Rover set about devaluing the brand with the irritatingly successful Range Rover Sport, a mongrel that concealed Discovery underpinnings beneath gently brash detailing and a misleading badge.

Worse still, having decided we're all too stupid to identify a member of the family unless it shares a sibling's features, the company has now imposed many of the upstart Sport's styling indignities on the head of the clan. Externally, this equates to a new hooter featuring too much bright metal, a grille modelled on the blades of a chop-anything shopping channel kitchen appliance, pointlessly noodled front wing vents and tail lamps that wouldn't look out of place on a chain around a New York rapper's neck.

On board, the elegance of the current model's dashboard architecture just about survives a further surfeit of metal-highlight mayhem. Switchgear has apparently been simplified, though there still appears to be a button for every day of the year, while all-new electrics imbue both instrument binnacle and centre console with their own party tricks...

The former now incorporates something called a Thin Film Transistor (TFT) screen, which replaces conventional analogue dials with, erm, facsimile analogue dials that are hard to read because of unwarranted glare. The latter cunningly contrives to offer driver and front passenger different images on the same screen in the manner of a tilt ‘n' strip Margate postcard, so the driver can check the satnav while the front passenger watches a movie. Sadly, however, the absence of a headphone socket means the driver will discover who framed Roger Rabbit, whether he wants to or not.

Beneath the McGovern glitz, though, a fabulous car lurks. You sit so high that you're always a little astonished to arrive behind the wheel without the aid of a ladder, but the Range Rover is immensely comfortable. A new 5.0-litre, supercharged V8 embellishes the flagship Autobiography model with appropriate urgency, yet at 60mph it ticks over in near silence at less than 2,000rpm.

Adaptive suspension has improved handling perceptibly, though efforts to carry real speed through corners still feel somewhat like chucking the living room around. Off the beaten track that TFT screen finally earned its keep by nudging the speedo aside to reveal a wealth of undercarriage information, while five cameras watched out for malicious boulders. The car remains hilariously easy to use and little short of remarkable.

Nul points to the felt-tip fairies, then, but full marks to the engineers.

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