What is it?
You may have heard it’s possible to spend rather a lot of money on a Range Rover Velar – the model that slots into the marque's range between the Evoque and the Sport.
If you haven’t, here’s a reminder: the top-spec P380 costs more than £70,000, which is enough to put a well-equipped Range Rover Sport SDV6 – more refined, more capable but, we’ll admit, not as chic – on your drive with change for 30,000 miles’ worth of diesel.
It’s enough to have you panning down the price list wondering which would be the least compelling engine you can get away with. And, frankly, there’s nothing to stop you from saving £25,000 and choosing the entry-level D180. Nothing, that is, except the fact that the overall appeal of the motorshow-concept-made-real Velar is unusually susceptible to what lurks beneath its long aluminium bonnet.
Its aura of luxurious, long-legged athleticism – conjured by a formidably attractive design both inside and within – demands performance of a certain level and nature, and it should ideally be served with as little fanfare as possible. It’s why we’d steer clear of lesser diesel variants if possible and couldn’t bring ourselves to love even the moderately powerful D240 engine on its full road test.
In short, the Velar has so far needed six cylinders to make a genuinely convincing case for itself and stand out in the competitive luxury SUV category. But that could change with the introduction of the four-cylinder petrol-engined P300 tested here.
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Quiet Sunday?
Surely the salespeople at Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Volvo are too busy to come on here and slag off JLR...?
Much as I hate it ....
.... as it is a true new money chav mobile, but the best machine JLR makes is the 3.0 TDV6 RR Sport. 7 seats, powerful with decent economy, nice interior with Velar bits and looks decent.
Velar is not worth the money. The Evoque is a joke, the RR is great but just a bit too big for 4 seats, 5 at most and the Disco is now ugly and barely any cheaper than the RR Sport.
From the runt to the boss, not sure that Mr Premium Premiuminess would be happy with that.
What an overpriced load of
What an overpriced load of old rubbish - take the usual RR/LR generic design, remove the doors handles, give it unnecessarally large heater controls with an unecessary touchscreen that takes up 3x more space on the console than is actually needed and bingo, we have a stupidly priced car for the mind-numbingly stupid and sheep-like Apple generation - people who have to have it just cos its the latest thing and will happily pay through the nose just for that reason. And its not even a proper off roader, from a company who made their name making proper off roaders ! Madness. Still, its nice to see a car without leather for once.
typos1 wrote:
We don't have an iPhone, or a single Apple product. Not sure which generation the Apple comment applies to but at 45 does it apply to me? We could've had a few different brands for our £650pm budget but found this to be best one, decent petrol offerings are thin on the ground with this type of vehicle.
Yes but as youre clearly in
Yes but as youre clearly in the market for a non off road vehicle you could have bought a proper car (rather than a fake SUV) that would be more versatile, more practical, handle better, ride better, get better economy, put out lower emissions and be cheaper !
typos1 wrote:
Read my other posts muppet.
If this isn't a proper car, what is it?
What is an SUV?
Had plenty of other types of cars, this is no less versatile or practical
This handles quite well, had we wanted a car that handles, we'd have bought a Porsche.
This rides as well as any other car we've had, if not better.
We're not interested in economy other than reasonable range.
Emissions are bullshit, unless you're a monkey, then you're sucking um in.
This also my wife's car. I drive a KIA Optima Estate PHEV. Does that car meet your fxcked up views muppet boy?