Published:
6 August 2024There are hints to a theme started by the L322 Range Rover of 2002 inside the latest car: a large horizontal slab of dashboard is bisected with vertical elements in marine/yacht-inspired fashion.
It’s less obvious these days, partly owing to the 13.1in touchscreen floating in the middle of the dash, but the idea’s still the same: to give a classy, classical, slightly detached overview of what’s going on. You sit back and relax and the controls come to you. It’s not an immersive driver-focused cockpit like a sports car’s.
Which all suits rather nicely. The seats are large and flat but hugely adjustable and the driving position is tall, upright and dead straight, allied to a big steering wheel and pedals. Today’s gear selector is a wide, fat one not unlike a throttle on a powerboat. Next to it, appropriately, the terrain response control knob can be pushed discreetly into the transmission tunnel.
Then there are covers for the various cubbies and cupholders, to basically shut out non-essentials. It’s a bit of a shame, then, that the aluminium-effect panel they sit on is easily capable of reflecting light into your eyeballs and that there’s no control knob, save for the volume, to make infotainment controls easier.
The digital instrument pack is clear and the steering wheel buttons – a haptic panel rather than individual physical ones though they are – are not easily mis-pressed. Perceived material quality and fit and finish are up to the price, even though these days that means £100,000-plus.
