Revised Range Rover revealed

Land Rover is targeting Bentley levels of opulence with this revised version of the third-generation Range Rover.

The 2010 edition of the jumbo SUV is due on sale in July. It gets tweaks to its transmission, chassis, electrical architecture, cabin and exterior styling.

To read about the new Land Rover Discovery, click Disco closes on Range Rover

For the full Range Rover Sport revisions, click Big revisions for Range Rover Sport

Sean Henstridge, lead designer on the project, says the new styling is designed to give the Range Rover a “less cluttered look”. His team’s mild revisions include a slightly deeper grille, a new bumper and slimmer, “more jewel-like” headlights, with LED side lighting. There are new rear lamp clusters, too.

The interior has been given a makeover with fresh switchgear, including two four-way thumb switches on the steering wheel. Satin aluminium finish bezels have been added to many of the interior fittings.

The latest Range Rover gets a 12in TFT instrument panel in place of a conventional instrument cluster. The screen can be configured to give different information, but its main trick is to offer different 3D displays between the animated speedo and rev counter. A quicker-thinking hard disk-based sat-nav system is fitted, as is voice control.

Also new to the car is a ‘360-degree’ camera system, which gives the driver an overall view of the road around the vehicle.

There are major changes under the skin. Like the newly revised Range Rover Sport and Discovery models, the Range Rover gets three new engines, all offering substantially improved performance and modest gains in fuel economy.

The range-topper gets the Jaguar XFR/XKR’s new 5.0-litre supercharged V8, which is good for 503bhp and 461lb ft of torque, while economy is up by around seven per cent.

The Range Rover will continue to be offered with the existing 268bhp 3.6-litre TDV8, rather than the new 3.0-litre V6 diesel that's shared with Jaguar.

To cope with the extra performance, the Range Rover gets uprated brakes. Diesel-engined variants get four-piston calipers similar to those on the outgoing supercharged Range Rover. The new Supercharged model gets six-pot Brembo monoblock calipers and 380mm discs on the front wheels.

The Range Rover’s chassis has also been upgraded. It gets the option of a new Adaptive Damping system, which Land Rover says is the first production car to employ “predictive technology”.

The system is based around new Bilstein dampers equipped with continuously adjusting Damptronic valves. The set-up is designed to anticipate the driver’s next move and adjust the damper settings accordingly; it monitors each wheel 500 times per second.