Driving The Range Rover Evoque
by Sue Baker (4 May 2011)
Two cars amid a sea of Sunseeker motor yachts were toasted in an ocean of champagne at the London Boat Show. That was the launch party thrown by Land Rover late last year to schmooze all the customers who had placed orders for the new Range Rover Evoque, nearly a year ahead of first deliveries of the car this autumn. New models from Land Rover are rare enough events to warrant such a lavish early send-off.
The Evoque - pronounced to rhyme with folk, not clock - is the much-anticipated smallest, lightest and most streamlined Range Rover in history. Few people outside Land Rover have yet driven it, but I am one of them. Invited to the company headquarters at Gaydon for a technical briefing on the car and a passenger ride in a pre-production model six months ahead of its launch, I argued for a drive instead and opted for the likely best-selling version, with a 2.2-litre SD4 turbo diesel engine and six-speed manual gearbox.
So what is it like, this new baby Range Rover? From the outside you expect it to be rather cramped inside, as its low-swept roofline and sharply tapering side windows suggest it will be. It isn't, though. The Evoque has a Tardis effect of seeming far more spacious in the cabin than the exterior styling makes you think. There is surprisingly good headroom all round, including in the back seats, more than enough for a six-footer-plus. This has been achieved by the rear seats being the same height as the front ones, not that slightly tiered, opera-seating style of other 4x4s.
The cabin is luxurious, Range Rover style. The test car was trimmed out in beautiful leather with double lines of contrasting stitching. In the driving seat you are separated from the front passenger by a high centre console that has a cocooning effect, and the ambience is very similar to a big brother Range Rover on a slightly more intimate scale. There is a start button on the dash, a big central touch-screen satnav, and the five-position Terrain Response Control alongside the gearlever.
The driving position is typically Range Rover "sports command". You sit high up in the vehicle with elevated SUV ground clearance, even though it actually rides 10cm lower than a Land Rover Freelander. The Evoque is derived from the same basic structure as a Freelander, but very heavily modified to achieve a more balletic behaviour. It uses the same suspension layout, with MacPherson struts at the front and multilink rear suspension, but everything has been redesigned to reduce weight and improve driving dynamics.
The Evoque is equipped with third-generation MagneRide, the variable magnetic damping that is also in an Audi R8. It is very effective. Ride quality is remarkable: on a bumpy track the Evoque smoothed out the undulations, and at 60mph it dismissed a bulky speed hump with scarcely a lurch. But even more impressive is the calibre of handling, aided by chassis stability electronics. On a twisty road, powering fast through a series of sharp bends, the car gripped the corners and handled more like a sports coupe than an untypically-streamlined SUV.
The driving experience is quite tactile: steering feedback is more direct and informative than you'd typically expect of a pumped-up 4x4. Land Rover engineers have worked hard on tuning out unwanted noise and vibration, and the car is very refined, the SD4 diesel engine has a pleasantly balanced note that is not unduly intrusive when you hustle the Evoque hard along a demanding route. The six-speed manual gearbox has a slick action and the ratios are intelligently spaced.
My privileged early test drive only lasted about half an hour, the time it took to do several laps of the various punishing multi-surface handling tracks that snake around the perimeter of Gaydon's high-speed test facility. It was therefore somewhat shorter than the several hundred miles usually involved in an initial test of a new car, but long enough to warm to the excellent manners of the new baby Range Rover. It feels quite a honey to drive.
The Evoque, officially on the road from September, will be available in two body styles, a practical five-door and a slightly lower and sportier three-door Coupe. There are three trim levels – "design themes" in Range Rover-speak – Pure, Dynamic and Prestige. There is a Tech Pack to enhance the Pure models and a Lux Pack to up-spec the Dynamic and Prestige.
Initially all Evoques will be four-wheel-drive and there in a choice of three engines: the 2.2-litre, 148bhp TD4 turbo diesel with six-speed manual gearbox; a pokier 187bhp 2.2 187 bhp SD4 with either manual or automatic transmission; and an auto-only 237bhp two-litre petrol Si4. Prices start from £28,705, rising to £44,320 at the top end. Coming next year is a front-wheel drive eD4 version, with the 148 bhp turbodiesel engine, sub-130g/km CO2 and the lowest price tag, at £27,955.
