Range Rover Velar interior: the leather-free luxury car? Yes please

Apologies for being so impertinent, but if you own a leather sofa, or any other furniture covered in cow hide, I think it is irredeemably naff.

And given this is an opinion column, and that is a straight up, starkly-expressed opinion, I will pledge here, up front and before Mr-Angry-Of-The-Internet strikes up his keyboard, to respect your differing viewpoint if you agree to respect mine.

The Range Rover Velar has been officially revealed - take a look here

I’ve been perplexed at the claimed appeal of of leather covered furnishings for as long as I remember. When the weather is cold, so the leather is colder. When it is warm, so the leather is warmer, and it also does a great job of escalating the discomfort by recycling any ensuing sweat. To appear long-lasting, as all furniture bar that previously adorning French palaces seemingly must, it must be treated to the point it looks like plastic. And if you place your derriere down too fast, or catch an unclothed limb at the wrong angle, it makes a noise that makes boys of all ages giggle like they’re back in primary school.

Yet for decade after decade, the car industry has stuck with it, charging us more for the apparently premium qualities of bedecking our cars in the hides of butchered bovines (I’m not a vegetarian, nor a tree-hugger, by the way), while charging even more to overcome its shortcomings, via the mediums of elaborate stitchings, heating elements, cleverly hidden ventilation blowers and ever more curious chemical treatments to soften and colour it.

My entirely unscientific hunch is that the march of leather as a premium car material has been powered forward by the dominance of the German-based makes at the sharp end of the market, who have set a blueprint that we haven’t questioned - until now.