Land Rover Discovery Sport D180 AWD SE 2019 UK first drive

Not long ago, this version of the latest Discovery Sport would have been decisively the biggest seller of the range. We all know why it will sell more slowly these days, but the fact remains that a fat 317lb ft slug of torque served early is just what an off-roader, a family seven-seater and a tow car need to best deliver on their mission. 

The Discovery Sport is all of these things, of course, besides being a civilised long distance machine that, when equipped with this 178bhp 2.0 turbodiesel engine, is capable of fuel economy that shouldn’t alarm. This despite the fact that it weighs 1953kg, a fair old hunk of heft for a vehicle that is a direct descendant of the Freelander. 

That heft is a slightly greater burden than the previous Discovery Sport carried, in part because this new one comes as a mild hybrid with 48-volt electrics, as well as a nine-speed automatic gearbox and, many existing Disco Sport owners will perhaps ruefully note, an enlarged fuel tank. 

There’s a lot more that’s new than this brief list and the tweaked bumpers and lighting suggest, too. The Disco Sport has undergone the unusual automotive equivalent of having a heart, lung and liver transplant – it now rides on an entirely new platform. You can probably list the cars that have undergone a mid-life platform transplant on the stalks of one steering column, but the Disco Sport has undergone one in order that it shares the innards of the latest Evoque, allowing the aforementioned 48-volt hybridisation to be offered.

Never mind the industrial logic, the result is a much-improved Discovery Sport, particularly on the refinement front. Your isolation from the commotion of motion is pleasingly complete, if not to the point that you feel divorced from what's going on.

The Ingenium diesel engine is still identifiable as such when moving off, but on the move it’s as subdued as a dozing dog. There are occasions when the transmission can appear similarly dozy, but it’s more alert than it was in the D240 Discovery Sport recently tested. Suddenly demanding the car to get up and go sometimes prompts a momentary freeze before a gear is abruptly delivered, but when you’re properly on the move the gearbox oozes smoothly between its upper ratios. 

Briskly tackling a twisting B-road will soon demonstrate the value of these tremor-free shifts; the Discovery consumes bends, dips and crests with a composure you wouldn’t necessarily expect of a seven-seater, at least when lightly loaded. It piles into bends without pause, without much roll and with a surety that almost earns it the Sport element of its name. This is not a car you can steer with the throttle, though, and feel through the steering wheel rim does little to signal an impending absence of grip, but you’ll be surprised at the enjoyment to be found in cracking on.