The Real-Life Report
by David Finlay (04 Feb 05)

Elsewhere in the magazine you'll find plenty to read about the Discovery, including Mike Grundon's launch report of the range in general, my own road test of the TDV6 SE and - if you insist - Rufus J Flywheel's column about the strange goings-on at the international press event. What makes this new test significant is that it's the first report we've made about actually living with a Discovery on a day-to-day basis.

This one is the TDV6 HSE, which is simply a yet more lavish version of the SE. In all its forms the Discovery is exceptionally well equipped, but the HSE is top dog, with 19" alloy wheels, a "moon roof", a six-speed automatic gearbox (the SE uses a six-speed manual) and the best audio and navigation systems in the range.

The automatic transmission makes quite a difference. I'm very impressed with the manual, which has the neatest gearchange action of any serious off-roader in my experience, but it does point up Land Rover's curious decision to remove one of the two turbochargers used on this engine when it's fitted to the Jaguar S-Type. Land Rover says this has been done to improve flexibility, but whatever the graphs may say my impression is that flexibility has been reduced.

With the manual gearbox you have to react to this and change gears more often than you think necessary, but with the automatic you just select D and leave the transmission to its own devices.

You can also move the lever an inch or so to the left and start choosing gears for yourself, but I did this just once, by way of experiment. I never felt the need to do so again.

That, of course, was because of the driving conditions. Last year I drove the Discovery in various forms over an incredible variety of terrain - on tarmac, down dizzying slopes, through lochs, up sand dunes and on one deeply embarrassing occasion (yes, it was me) over the heads of horrified Land Rover personnel and into space.

This time I had all four wheels on solid ground at all times, and I soon realised how little use I was making of the car's potential. Manual control of what gear I was in was almost irrelevant, but at the same time it was a lot more relevant than the astonishing Terrain Response system which allows you to adjust the car's behaviour according to the type of ground you want to cover next. A fantastic device. Very clever. Didn't go anywhere near it.

If I had bought this car rather than just borrowed it, I would have paid a lot of money for features I would never use, other than to justify the fact that I'd paid a lot of money for them. But this is the paradox of serious 4x4s in general, and the Discovery (and Range Rover) in particular. Vastly more people buy them than need them. Land Rover enjoys incredible brand loyalty, which translates into incredible sales figures, but there must be more to it than that.

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