Range Rover Velar 2017 first drive

But first, inside. Where, because it’s a Range Rover, there is a big, lateral slab across the dashboard; a leather-bound butcher’s block that has been a feature item on Range Rovers ever since Rover met BMW. Now, as then, it’s meant to feel yacht-inspired; broad and powerful, but light and luxurious, a structural horizontal beam with vertical supports running through it. It’s the feature that really established a Range Rover’s interior as one to send postcards home about; one, surely, benchmarked by, among others, Volvo when creating the new Volvo XC90. 

But there are two things about the addenda surrounding it this time. First is the Velar’s perceived material quality. On the face of it, things are great: the leather is good – Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) talks about using the same high-end stitching and fabrics as top models – but it flatters to deceive in places. Not everything can be leather, and on lower bits of the cabin, there are harder plastics, some scratchy, which seatbelt buckles have already given a hard time. Some of the metalised plastics don’t convince you well enough that they’re not plastics, aside from providing an authentic, overly harsh glare in bright sunlight. Compared with, say, a Porsche Macan, the Velar is visually a lot more arresting. But while dark, rubbery plastics are boring, they’re not blinding, either. 

I’m probably nitpicking, mind. But it strikes me that Volvo does it better. And the Volvo XC90, in terms of airiness and finish, is probably the Velar’s closest benchmark. It’s also a car that, like the Velar, has a predominantly touchscreen infotainment system. 

But here’s point two of note about the Velar: this thing now has a proper one. There is a fully digital instrument panel, with two, large, hi-res touchscreen panels on the dash. Even the steering-wheel buttons are digitally highlighted. And all of it is good. For the first time, I think JLR can turn around and say it has caught up with everybody else. Except? Well, except the lower panel is by your knee. It deals with systems you’ll use less frequently but, honestly, that’s too far away from where you should be looking. 

The rest of the interior? Well, it mimics, in its way, the F-Pace, in that it offers a large boot, at the expense of some rear leg room. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s loads of room in the front: the seats are big, there are slidey armrests, that sort of thing. I wouldn’t mind if the steering wheel reached a bit closer to me, but it is a good wheel. And there’s enough room in the back. I’m 5ft 10in and could sit behind my own driving position quite comfortably. Besides which, you get quite a lot more boot space this way (673 litres versus a Macan’s 500, if you’re interested). However, as standard, I don’t like the idea of a Range Rover, even a less than full-fat one, having a spacesaving rather than full-sized spare. This is an off-roader, after all. 

Not unlike the Macan, it’s one that costs from £44,000. Only, of course, it doesn’t really, because that gets you a standard 178bhp diesel, and as soon as you’re away from that entry model, what you’re looking at is a car with a price of at least £50,000, most likely £60,000 to £70,000 and, in First Edition trim, as much as £85,500. That might strike you, as it does me, as quite a lot. 

All models – 178bhp diesel, 237bhp diesel and 296bhp V6 diesel (tested here), plus 247bhp petrol, 296bhp petrol and 376bhp V6 petrol – drive through an eight-speed automatic gearbox. There are two versions of that, depending on the torque they have to cope with. All models are all-wheel drive, too, but not in the traditional permanent Land Rover sense (nor even the newer Evoque sense). Instead, because the Velar comes from the same fundamentally rear-driven platform as Jaguars, it’s normally a rear-biased car, with a chain drive to transfer torque to the front when it needs it. 

But, no, it’s the Velar’s refinement, rather than its agility, that is the more prevalent. The steering is light and easy, and the ride, once you’re up to any kind of speed, nudges lumps and bumps aside comfortably. 

At low speeds, things aren’t quite so clever, as a result of the 21in (or 22in on the petrol model I tried) wheels that suit the Velar’s looks so well. What, when you’re moving, is a barely audible thump turns into a proper whack. There’s some body movement to go with the isolation, inevitably, but that suits what feels like, to me, a car of decent hush. 

Another caveat: the roads we tested it on, spectacular though they make these pictures, offer you no more than 50mph. And some are abrasive, so there’s some road noise, to the extent that a test in the UK will be essential before a definitive verdict is reached. 

But the engine is merely a distant thrum. The gearshift changes smoothly. And Land Rover’s people say that they have put a lot of effort, plus materials and costs, into creating a space that’s more isolated than any of the cars whose basis the Velar shares. 

I think that’s important. Look, it’s easy to get a bit tied down in platforms and architectures and whatnot, and it can be quite silly, really: after all, what is any car if not a collection of metals and plastics to a given size? Everyone hangs things from common systems.