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Top Gear
a day ago
- Automotive
- Top Gear
Aston Martin DB12 - long-term review - Report No:5 2025
Which got me thinking: is there a way to make the subjective quandary of beauty objective? Could beauty in cars – particularly modern Aston Martins – be measured, if not by tape, then perhaps by involuntary public reaction? Because, if that's the case, the current crop of Astons (and the DB12, given my firsthand experience) are some of the most beautiful cars on the road. Beauty, famously, is in the eye of the beholder. But ever since I've been behind the wheel of our Aston Martin DB12, there seems to have been an increase in beholders. They pop up like wet gremlins, offering their admiration in car parks, at petrol stations, pulling out their phones at traffic lights and shouting 'That's GAWWWJUSSS!' from cab windows down the M4. 'The DB11 was a striking car, but the 12 is dominantly striking. It's got an appropriate grille that supports the increased drivability – more cooling, more aero – but it's also a more stately object now. It's more of that noble rogue you'd expect. Not the answer I came for – and it made me wonder if it was going to be a wasted four-hour round trip. But then Reichman opened up, insisting that car design is less about diktats and more about seduction with the DB12. But what are people actually reacting to? The shape? The proportions? The colour? The badge? Or is there something less tangible at play? To try and qualify my very unscientific survey, I took our long-term DB12 back to its birthplace at the Gaydon factory, parked it alongside its immediate family – a Vantage, a DBX 707, and the all-new, even more pin-up-worthy Vanquish – and asked the man behind the lines, Aston Martin's chief creative officer Marek Reichman, if he could explain why strangers stop mid-sentence to stare. 'As a designer, as a creative – all of us, the entire company – we're existing in two worlds,' Reichman explained. 'We're in the automotive space, yes, but we're also in the luxury world. The world of being noticed.' And being noticed matters. If you drive an Aston Martin, people look. 'They are consciously thinking about who you are. You've got to be conscious. We're designing and engineering within that context.' The idea, it turns out, wasn't to make the DB12 more beautiful. It was to make it more present. 'It's simply wearing the right clothes,' he said. 'It's presence. It's proportion. It's elegance. It's stature. That's the DNA of our brand.' Marek is fantastically articulate and avoids designer jargon. The DB12 is, after all, built on an Aston Martin platform – not a shared one, not a group hand-me-down, not something diluted by cross-brand committees. That, Reichman said, gives it more room to breathe. More room to wear its clothes. 'All of those platforms, whether it's from DB9 onwards, it's an Aston Martin platform – not a group platform we've had to derivatise,' he explained. 'We have the ability to control proportion, working with engineering to control performance from day one. And that's been fundamental – the makeup of our brand. That gives us the ability to define, particularly on Vantage. I think it's one of the best-proportioned cars in its class. DB12 is close, but nothing comes near Vanquish. When you're rare, you can play more with proportional change.' According to the man with the pens, it's that phrase – proportional change – that gets to the core of why the DB12 pulls eyes out of sockets. 'It's a wider car. More punch. The nose is more upright, more dominant. Taller. All the fenders, front and rear, are pushed out from the body – gives it more room to play with.' Marek makes a sculptor's gesture as he speaks, curving his fingers around invisible haunches. 'We have a massive benefit. That distance – that pressing distance for a rear arch – it's immense. Porsche, Mercedes, Bentley? They don't come close. What these new iterations have done is given more room for the clothing. It's what every show car does. Only we can actually do it.' But the kerb appeal is also down to pedestrians seeing the car from the right angles, at the right distance – because the way we view cars isn't up close but from afar. Not through detail, but silhouette. 'We never design within three metres,' he said. 'Always 20 metres away. We sketch on A2 paper. You need to understand the aesthetic in two dimensions to deploy it in three. You're not discovering the idea in 3D – you've already nailed it in 2D.' So where do the ideas begin? I wondered what was on the DB12's mood board – and was surprised by the route-one response. 'With DB12, believe it or not, it was James Bond. It was more about elegance, stature. Less of the rogue, more of the gentleman.' The car, in his mind, is a character. A type. Like a cast list on wheels. For the other cars, there are more. 'One of them was Idris Elba. Another was a buffalo. A bull. A large shark. And... I can't remember the other one,' he said, laughing. 'But the point is, we start with personality. We use characters to help the designers start their designing.' I asked what happens when engineering gets in the way – when the chassis says no, or the finance team wants it smaller, or the emissions team wants more vents. Reichman smiled. 'We have the benefit of controlling the platform,' he said, 'so when the engineers say 'better turn-in, three millimetres forward', we can actually do it.' The level of agility and influence, he pointed out, hasn't existed since the David Brown days. 'Then a bunch of stuff happened,' he said, dryly. 'But now it's back.' Credit, he noted, goes in part to Lawrence Stroll – not just for the money, but for bringing a kind of fashion-world rigour to branding. 'If you're a luxury brand – and we coined the term ultra luxury – you need consistency,' Reichman said. 'An artist may vary, but their expression is consistent. Rothko is always a Rothko. And our customers say, 'I own an Aston Martin', then they say which one.' So, I asked him if he were in one of Aston's new, super-jazzy NYC-inspired speccing pods at Gaydon, how would he spec a DB12? 'My next one's ultramarine black. Very dark blue with a black wheel and a dark night interior. Popped with a dark red calliper and red stitch. It's quite subtle, but not black. In sunlight, you see the blue. It's elegant and sporting. More dark denim jeans than dinner suit.' Quite the opposite of what he's rocked up to work in today – an orange over orange (is that orange squared?) DBX. But Marek again believes you should wear your cars like a wardrobe – especially in this ultra high-net-worth world – where, if you're going to a cocktail party at a beach club, you'll wear something slightly different to a night at the opera. And with our cars, you can do exactly that. Your character remains the same, but you can tune and tweak it for what you want. We spoke just as Trump introduced sweeping tariffs, another reminder that like it or not, cars are now entangled in the wider theatre of politics, policy, technology, and power. How does this affect Marek's thinking? 'I'm conscious of everything on a global scale that happens, because I have to be. As a designer. We're a respected brand – and that means we have to be conscious of everything that exists.' But that context, Reichman insists, comes with a unique advantage. 'We have a massive, massive bonus point in that we're a love brand. We are loved by many – we are. You get the thumbs up, not the finger up, when you drive our cars. People let you out in traffic in London.' You can't disappear in an Aston Martin. 'If you want to drive into London without being papped by a kid on a street corner, forget it. Because you will be papped in that car.' That visibility, he says, brings a responsibility. And part of that consciousness is a long view. 'We've made 113 years' worth of cars. 125,000 in total. And 96 per cent of them still exist.' His voice brightens slightly. 'So from that perspective, I'm creating a future collectible – not a throwaway object. So what I have to design – what we have to design – is something that, 50 years from now, people will still respect. Still appreciate. Still see as an object of beauty.' Well, if the cab drivers and beholders are anything to go by – with their shouts of 'That's GAWWWJUSSS!' – he's doing a pretty good job.
Motor Trend
19-05-2025
- Automotive
- Motor Trend
2025 Aston Martin Vantage First Test Review: Proper Performance Car
Pros The best Vantage ever Absolutely gorgeous Fun to drive and a rip-roaring exhaust tone Cons Carbon brakes aren't quite as precise as the best For track junkies, there are slightly better handlers Hood release still deep in passenger footwell (do you really care?) If you don't know from reading our previous coverage of the latest Aston Martin Vantage that arrived on the market for 2025 as a coupe and in Roadster form as a 2026 model, the gist is this: Aston is focused on making serious performance cars rather than squishier grand-touring machines that happen to go fast in straight lines. 0:00 / 0:00 Based on our extensive seat time in the Aston Martin Vantage coupe and a day spent in the new 2026 Roadster, our seat-of-the-pants feel confirms the work done by the engineers at Aston's Gaydon, England, home base has paid off. But we hadn't until now hooked our data-collecting gear to the new Vantage to put real numbers alongside our perception of improved performance. Power Up The 2025 Aston Martin Vantage continues to employ a Mercedes-AMG-sourced 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, which Aston says it tunes to its own specifications, but the new version produces a lot more power and torque than before. Thanks to bigger turbos, new cam profiles, a compression ratio of 8.6:1 versus 10.5 (meaning the turbos can run more boost), and a better cooling package, the engine produces peak figures of 656 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque compared to the old car's 503 hp and 505 lb-ft. The upshot: Aston Martin says the 2025 Vantage accelerates to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds and reaches a top speed of 202 mph, the latter number being 7 mph faster than before. That said, the front-engine/rear-wheel-drive architecture and 50/50 weight distribution front to rear keeps that official 0–60 time a mere 0.1 second quicker than the old car's, thanks to the layout's traction-limited nature. Considering many automakers' official acceleration times often don't precisely match our real-world testing results, we were rather curious to find out if Aston is being conservative or optimistic with its claim. Hit the Gas As it transpired, it's being neither and is instead dead-on accurate. Once we deactivated traction and stability control, selected the Sport+ drive program, and sent the car down the dragstrip with a 2,000-rpm launch-controlled getaway, it returned a 0–60-mph time of … 3.4 seconds. The surreal thing, however, is that other than the V-8's aggressive, loud, and massively satisfying sounds, the launch experience isn't as exciting as you'd expect in a car this quick. There's no drama, no sense of unhinged fury. Instead, it launches incredibly smoothly, other than a bit of wheelspin during the first second of the run. While the Vantage's 3.4-second 0–60 time is certainly solid in today's terms, the quarter mile lets the car use its muscle to more effect. It flashed past the marker in 11.2 seconds at 132.0 mph, and it was unsurprisingly still pulling strong at that point. We never had an opportunity to test the previous Vantage coupe like this, but we did test a 2021 Vantage Roadster to the tune of an 11.9-second time at 119.3 mph. Granted, that convertible version weighed 60 pounds more than this 3,878-pound coupe, according to our scales, but the improved quarter-mile performance is significant nonetheless. In the name of a more contemporary comparison with an in-market rival, we also recently tested a 2025 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS T-Hybrid that returned a nutso 0–60 time of 2.6 seconds and a quarter-mile pass of 10.7 at 129.7 mph. Those results came despite the Carrera's 121-hp and 141-lb-ft deficits to the Vantage. That says a lot about the Porsche's lighter weight (280 pounds) and better traction off the line, though you can easily see where the big-power Aston begins to severely claw back the acceleration gap as speeds rise well past 100 mph. Braking and Handling When it's time to stop the 2026 Aston Martin Vantage, there's no need to fret. However, be aware that when equipped as our test car was with optional carbon-ceramic brakes, the Vantage performs best when those brakes have a fair amount of heat in them. We noted this on the street during a chilly morning drive (ambient temps in the high 40s) on Southern California's challenging and twisting Angeles Crest Highway, when the brake pedal initially felt a bit soft. That carried over to the test track, where we found the stopping distances got shorter and shorter with each attempt, yielding a 60–0-mph best of 99 feet—just 4 feet longer than the lighter 911 Carrera GTS T-Hybrid needed to do the same. And we were happy to discover the initially average-feeling brake pedal firmed up in the process, reminding us why we liked it so much during our first drive opportunity on a Spanish racetrack last year. As for handling, the Vantage posted a best skidpad figure of 1.04 g (average) versus the 911's 1.11—a solid number but not an extraordinary one despite the car's massive Michelin PS5 tires. On our proprietary figure-eight course, however, the Aston was more of a handful. It posted a best lap of 23.3 seconds at 0.94 g (average) compared to the Porsche's 22.4 seconds and 0.99 g. Clear advantage to the German, and we found the Vantage to be inconsistent here. Worth noting as well: The eight-speed automatic transmission was sometimes lazy to downshift, leading to us switch the gearbox to manual-shift mode. That's something we previously learned is preferable while driving the car aggressively, as the gearbox isn't as quick or sharp as a twin-clutch unit. Running the coupe in Track mode and with its adjustable traction control switched off completely, it would sometimes rotate into the corners nicely but at other times fall into lap-time-killing understeer. And even with both traction and stability control turned off, we were frustrated during corner exits by the car's tendency to seemingly dial back the engine's power until you get the steering wheel mostly straight. We don't have a clear understanding of why, though it could be the Aston's particular combination of mechanical grip and its dynamics-controlling software package and electronic-differential characteristics simply don't like our admittedly unique figure-eight layout. We say this because we found the car behaves quite differently and to be spring-loaded with chassis rotation and plenty of driftability, and then some, when we drove it on that quick Spanish road-racing course a year ago. Final Word Puzzling figure-eight performance aside, our official test results solidify what we already knew about the Aston Martin Vantage: It's a legit sports car/driver's car and an intriguing, enticing alternative to something like an upper-echelon 911 Carrera. Speaking of which, remember that 911 GTS Hybrid we mentioned? We have something special cooking very, very soon between those two, so watch this site.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Land Rover Discovery
If one were looking for the rock on which the modern incarnation of Land Rover is built, you could easily make the case for the Land Rover Discovery – a car originally fashioned from a cubic jumble of old Range Rover architecture and the unwanted constituents of the Austin Rover parts bin. The first generation Land Rover Discovery, launched in 1989, was a packaging rethink intended to compete with a new, affordable generation of Japanese 4x4s that made the Range Rover of the day look old and overpriced. The solution wasn't flawless (indeed, its flaws multiplied and deepened over time), but its downsized diesel engine, utilitarianism and practicality caught the imagination of a public newly enthused about MPVs and the prospect of carrying seven people in hitherto unprecedented comfort. In subsequent years, the formula barely changed. Land Rover just drastically improved the ingredients. With the third generation Land Rover Discovery, in particular, Gaydon put its shoulder into the job, turning the Discovery into the model we now recognise: substantial, squared off and all but unstoppable. The outgoing, fourth-generation Land Rover Discovery, enhanced further still and nudged increasingly upmarket, was regarded with enormous affection in the UK – so much so that, as with the outgoing Land Rover Defender, Land Rover recorded an impressive upturn in sales as the car approached its run-out date. The reason for that last-minute enthusiasm for the Land Rover Discovery 4 is well understood. For all its virtues, the Discovery made for an anachronistic presence in Gaydon's curvaceous line-up, and its replacement heralded the end of an era that a substantial number of buyers were reluctant to see fade away. In short, they suspected that Land Rover might have lost sight of all the things that made the Discovery special and turned it into a lesser sibling of the Range Rover Sport – the model it is now most alike, mechanically. That's an understandable concern, but Gaydon could hardly be accused of taking its eye off the ball during this decade. One triumph has emphatically followed another, and in the Mk5 Land Rover Discovery it has promised nothing less than the world's best family SUV. We like the ambition – but now the car needs to prove it. The adoption of the Range Rover Sport's all-aluminium monocoque is actually a reversal of the previous model's relationship with its sibling. Previously, it was the Sport that followed the Discovery, employing the same two-chassis system (dubbed the Integrated Body Frame by Land Rover), despite its on-road bent. The amalgamation of a unitary body (incorporating the engine bay and passenger cell) with a ladder frame was ideal for the peculiar combination of durability and imperiousness that made the Discovery famous. Yet it was heavy and technically complicated to manufacture, making its replacement with current shared architecture as inevitable as the styling rethink. Make what you will of the vehicle's appearance – Land Rover is adamant that the softening of the previous model's idiosyncratic lines was essential to broadening its appeal – but the new architecture brings more interior space as a result of a longer wheelbase and the better all-round performance that comes with a weight loss of up to 480kg, depending on model. The drastic reduction in mass has permitted Gaydon to overhaul the engine line-up. In early iterations the Discovery was offered with four-cylinder engines, but as it moved through life cycles it ended up as a six-cylinder-only option. Now a four is back in the form of the latest and most powerful variant of the Ingenium family, alongside a revamped 254bhp 3.0-litre diesel V6 and a 335bhp supercharged 3.0-litre petrol V6. Sequential twin turbochargers coax 237bhp from the direct-injected 2.0-litre diesel, although it will be the range-best 171g/km of CO2 and 43.5mpg combined economy that distinguish the engine for most buyers. Every engine is mated to a ZF eight-speed automatic gearbox as standard, and you can add a two-speed transfer box for low-range gearing, which chiefly differentiates the Discovery from the single-speed Range Rover Sport. Otherwise the permanent, adaptive four-wheel drive system is identical. Compared with the Discovery 4, Land Rover has decreased ground clearance by 27mm, but wading depth has increased by 200mm. Four-corner adjustable air suspension features, in conjunction with front double wishbones and a rear multi-link layout that retains Gaydon's characteristic integral link. Both are mounted on steel subframes designed to withstand knocks and bangs should you finally overcome half a metre of wheel articulation. When the Discovery 3 was launched in 2003, it dwarfed its competition, but the rest of the large SUV class has since caught up on size. So although the new Discovery remains considerably taller than its opposition, an Audi Q7 is longer and also almost as wide across the door mirrors – and a Volvo XC90 isn't far behind. But irrespective of that, the expectation is that this will be just about the most spacious SUV on the road, because that's the niche Land Rover has carved for it. So it may come as a surprise that however generous the head room it affords its driver, it's only averagely accommodating for maximum front leg room. You sit high in the Discovery, but there's only up to 1070mm of leg room behind the wheel, whereas an XC90 gives you 1140mm – something well worth noting if you're particularly tall. As you move backwards, though, the standard of practicality rapidly improves. The second row is split 60/40, each portion sliding fore and aft as well as folding. At their rearmost position, each middle-row seat affords enough space to beat a Q7, although here, again, the XC90 is king on leg room. In row three, the Discovery is head and shoulders more spacious than its rivals. Our test car's third-row seats were also heated and had their own Isofix points and USB points for charging electronic devices. So as a seven-seater for adult passengers, the Discovery remains unbeatable. Its boot is among the class's biggest, too. And on top of all this, the Discovery offers intelligent seat- folding technology as an option on most trim levels. This enables all five rearmost seats to be folded out or away remotely using a smartphone app, or from the infotainment console or from the boot opening. That saves an awful lot of time and plenty of wrestling with catches and levers. Overall, this Discovery's cabin walks the line between functional pragmatism and premium-brand luxuriousness even more skilfully than before. Storage cubbies are hidden in places you least expect to find them – behind the ventilation controls and under sliding cupholders – and yet the car can also be equipped with the most up-to-date luxury features such as massage, climate-controlled Windsor leather seats, four-zone climate control and a chilled drinks compartment. Material richness and perceived quality are both very good, albeit perhaps not quite class-leading. So despite being one of the more functional options in the SUV class, the Discovery wants for few premium-brand refinements. In-car tech features include rear-seat entertainment screens, wi-fi, surround-view cameras and head-up display. Lower-end trims get Land Rover's 8.0in InControl Touch infotainment system, which includes navigation and music streaming features. With HSE and HSE Luxury trims, the infotainment is upgraded to an InControl Touch Pro system with a 10.0in widescreen. It's a more powerful and sophisticated set-up with a high-definition display, 10GB of solid-state memory storage, smartphone mirroring and a wi-fi hotspot (for which you supply your own data connection). The widescreen system looks graphically pleasing enough and it's fairly intuitive to use, but it's less quick to respond to touchscreen inputs than rival systems. The rear-seat entertainment system and in-car TV of our test car added to its price (although the TV option doesn't save you from needing to spend even more if you want a 'dual-view' infotainment screen up front). Land Rover supplies surround-view cameras and a 14-speaker, 825W audio system by Meridian as standard on HSE Luxury cars. Its audio quality is strong but not outstanding. The Mk5 Discovery may be significantly lighter than its predecessor, but the car's motive character remains mostly unaltered. This is a big car that drives like one – like its looks suggest it should, like you'd expect it to and like you'd hope it would with genuine dual-purpose on and off-road use in mind. Land Rover's familiar care over the details of the driving experience extends to an accelerator pedal whose sensitivity and calibration make the Discovery somewhat unwilling to be hustled away from a standstill but easy to waft into motion smoothly. Which is as you'd want it and should make the car supremely controllable when towing heavy trailers and covering slippery or rough terrain. On the move, the pace the Discovery wants to adopt is more gentle than that of its six-cylinder diesel rivals. Whereas a Q7 3.0 TDI 272 takes little more than six seconds to hit 60mph from rest, this Land Rover needs almost nine – and despite that healthy-sounding 443lb ft of mid-range torque, the Discovery isn't much closer to the Audi Q7 on in-gear pace, either. But the Land Rover's saving grace is that, much of the time, you wouldn't really want such a tall, wide car to be any quicker. Its engine is big on torque but revs to only just beyond 4000rpm, and although its gearbox will shift away smoothly enough however you drive it and is smart and obedient in manual mode, it's at its best when ushering the car along in swift but unhurried fashion. The Discovery isn't quite as mechanically refined as some large SUVs and perhaps more understandably, given its upright shape and size, it doesn't cut through the wind as quietly as some. That it stops, on the road and in safety-critical circumstances, with the slightly qualified urgency of a heavy car fitted with pseudo-off-road and 'all-season' tyres, is equally as much to do with the car's dual-purpose brief as anything. In light of that, hauling up from 70mph in less than 54 metres is no bad showing. The outgoing Discovery's distinguishing features – its unusual unified platform, its height, its air suspension and, most definitely, its weight – all contributed to an idiosyncratic and terrifically appealing driving experience. That experience, so prized by its owners, hasn't just informed the tuning of the new car; it has also served as the blueprint from which Land Rover has endeavoured to barely stray, excepting the ways in which it has improved. The result, then, is less an all-new car and more a considerate and thoughtfully resolved reboot – slightly leaner, lighter of foot and weightier in sophistication. It hardly hurts that many of the Discovery hallmarks remain safely in place: the hugely elevated ride height, the isolation of air springs and the fact that there's still well over two tonnes to tote about. But that scarcely diminishes the job done by Gaydon's engineers, not least in the elemental differences rendered between it and the Range Rover Sport. Both display significant rapport with their respective bulk, yet where the Sport hunkers down into a big-shouldered poise that approaches real keenness, the Discovery leans itself away from the effort, rolling congenially with gravity and the severity of the corner you're tackling. By modern standards, the steering is heavy, yet there's an oily precision to its electric assistance that leaves you in no doubt about the car's placement or its preferred rate of knots. Superior stiffness and uprated body control allow it to be driven quicker than before, although you'll hardly bother, because the Discovery is still ultimately about sitting back and soaking up the scenery rather than pummelling brusquely through it. This crucial facet is evidenced by a ride quality that doesn't straighten out every crinkle like a limousine but instead ruminates on its complexion like a high court judge, authoritatively dismissing anything it deems unduly consequential to the occupants above. Agile, car-like and witlessly adhesive the Discovery is plainly not. Yet its usability, indomitability and charisma are unequivocal. Like its predecessor – and quite unlike anything else – it feels built to see every far corner of the world even as it forms a stately and impermeable barrier against it. Through its stability control systems, the Discovery limits itself to a fairly sensible pace on the Alpine Hill Route. The car's challenges here are not just that it is tall and heavy, but also that it has hybrid road/off-road tyres, whereas rivals use less compromised rubber. However, the chassis electronics include good understeer control and you very quickly identify how much speed the car can securely carry through corners and simply drive to that pace, which would be far from restrictive for anyone on the road. Body control, although better than it used to be, remains decidedly loose when push comes to shove. You can't totally disengage the car's stability control, but you can ramp down its sensitivity if you want. There is little to be gained from doing so, though. The car's at-the-limit handling is stable at all times, but driving it hard on the road plainly isn't what it's engineered for. Arguably, the most telling demerit in Land Rover's quest to build the world's best family SUV is that the Discovery remains virtually unattainable to most households. Its origins as an 'affordable' alternative to Gaydon's other full-sized SUVs is at least discernible: an entry-level S model with the 2.0 diesel is £46,335, more than £15k cheaper than the lowliest Range Rover Sport. Nevertheless, given the spartan, cloth-seat nature of that version, Land Rover will be expecting most buyers to start shopping at SE or HSE level – comfortably more than £50k. The SE adds electrically-adjusted grained leather seats, LED headlights, a 250w stereo, front and rear parking sensors, and heated, power folding door mirrrors, while the HSE gains a Windsor leather interior, 380W Meridian sound system, panoramic glass roof, keyless entry, a powered tailgate and rear view camera. The HSE Luxury trim includes rear seat entertainment, app-controlled folding seats, an electric sunroof and 360-degree parking cameras. Opt for the 3.0-litre engine tested and you'll need to factor in a £1500 walk-up. The running costs will be slightly higher, too. Its CO2 output of 189g/km places the car on the 37 percent benefit-in-kind naughty step. At 39.2mpg combined, the V6 isn't that far adrift of the 43.5mpg claimed for the 2.0-litre motor – but as the 26.3mpg average recorded in True MPG testing shows, it's radically thirstier than the equivalent engines found in the Audi Q7 and BMW X5. The fifth-generation Land Rover Discovery may look like a quite different prospect from any namesake, but driving it is like being with an old friend who has been given a new waxed jacket and a new lease of life to go with it. This is such a comfortable, calming and assured car on the road – a proper Land Rover whose real talent is to put you at ease, despite its considerable size, and to be ready to do almost anything you might ask of it. And by taking road miles so comfortably and effortlessly in its stride, somehow it only underlines its ability to take you farther off the beaten track than any other SUV likely could – and without even getting its tyres mucky. The way we use SUVs has changed a lot in 28 years, and many of the Discovery's rivals now serve many people's needs better. But this is an authentic Land Rover with incredible breadth of ability, a better Discovery than ever before and a hugely appealing modern family car. It won't be for everyone – but for those who have a use for its Amazon-wide range of abilities, it's a brilliant and unrivalled product. With all that in mind we have ranked the new Discovery just behind its sibling, the Range Rover Sport, and ahead of the Audi Q7, Volvo XC90 and BMW X5. ]]>
