(slow upbeat music)
- Now, I wouldn't blame you
if you confuse the Land Rover Range Rover
with the few other Range Rover-esque models.
Maybe the Range Rover Sport, the Range Rover Velar,
the Range Rover Evoque, even.
Now, this is the original one that started it all.
The big dog Range Rover, no suffix.
And it goes head-to-head
with vehicles like the Cadillac Escalade,
the Lexus LX, the Lincoln Navigator
and the Mercedes-Benz GLS-Class.
There's just one hitch. Not a trailer hitch.
It's that those other SUVs have offered a third-row seat,
something the Range Rover hasn't dabbled in until now.
It's been fully redesigned for the 2022 model year
with a third row available for the first time,
as well as a whole lot more.
Now, like before,
the Range Rover comes with a regular wheelbase
and an extended wheelbase.
What we have here at the auto show in front of us
is the extended-wheelbase version.
The easiest way to tell this generation apart
from the previous generation is gonna come in back.
There's this very bold, kind of rectangular shape
going on here between this strip across
where "Range Rover" is emblazoned along the liftgate,
as well as this kind of lower strip here, which frames it.
This can come in various colors, Range Rover said,
Land Rover said, excuse me. This is gonna always be black.
And so actually, if you get black paint here,
as well as a black lower cover, color,
the entire tail can be black.
That includes these taillights,
which, when they turn off the LEDs, actually dim out
and then this entire panel here: also black.
So, kind of a cool look there.
Definitely very bold.
The first time, Land Rover says,
it's tried something like that.
I kinda dig it.
You get around the side,
still very similar, kinda Range Rover styling cues,
very upright here.
A lot of glass.
The roofline stays very high.
Land Rover says it tapers a little bit lower overall
than the previous generation of the Range Rover.
But still, again, a very upright stature here
versus some of the other Land Rover SUVs out there,
which kind of taper a little bit closer together
as you get kind of from the beltline
to where the roofline ends.
Check out some of these details here:
This entire door panel here.
There's kind of upper and lower areas,
but this is actually beveled
into the same piece of sheet metal.
Kinda ends abruptly right here.
Kind of a cool little theme here.
And you come up here,
this is actually the D pillar,
but it's behind this piece of glass,
so it looks completely formed underneath the glass
so that the glass kinda moves entirely
along the side of the vehicle.
You get around the front here,
changes are a little bit more subtle.
The headlights continue to sort of fan out here
along the hoodline, something they did before.
And you still get kind of,
this sort of trapezoidal shape here for the grille.
Below here, the lower part of the grille,
the lower grille here along the bumper
actually has much more of a rectangular opening.
And if you go back
to the previous generation of Range Rover,
it kinda fanned up a little bit up top there.
Now I know we're getting into the weeds here,
but so are the Range Rover.
Quite a few weeds actually.
A system called Integrated Chassis Control
With Dynamic Response Pro
can actually decouple both sides of the stabilizer bar
to provide maximum wheel articulation at both axles.
It can also basically function
as an active roll stabilization system,
essentially active stabilizer bars,
to mitigate body lean on corners.
Now, the previous generation
did also offer active stabilizer bars.
Land Rover says they're much more responsive now,
and they can shift torque a lot more
within the stabilizer bar
to provide a better response to corners.
There's also a lot of other technology here:
drive modes, inside include Sand, Mud, Rock, Crawl,
even a Waiting mode, and there's new rear-wheel steering
that can trim the turning circle on the new Range Rover,
in the regular wheelbase version I should say,
down to 36 feet. That's on par with a Toyota RAV4.
It's 11% less turning circle
than the previous-generation Range Rover.
For now, the Range Rover will offer two available engines,
both turbocharged, with six
or eight cylinders, respectively.
There's also going to be a plug-in hybrid version,
similar to the plug-in hybrid Range Rover before,
but it's gonna have considerably longer range
if Land Rover's estimates pan out in the actual EPA ratings,
plus even more power, so good news there.
And then finally, in 2024, expect a fully electric version
of the Range Rover to come, as well.
Back to the gasoline model.
Now the top engine, a turbocharged V-8
has a little bit less power
than the outgoing Range Rover's supercharged V-8,
but it has considerably more torque, Land Rover says.
And that all helps contribute
toward a considerably quicker 0-60 time
versus its predecessor,
yet more evidence that horsepower
is just one aspect of total performance.
Now, the prior-generation Range Rover
got a big refresh in the 2018 model year.
You may remember
that really made the interior more minimalistic.
You had two kinda 10-inch screens here for the multimedia
and the climate controls.
With this redesign, the minimalism certainly still lives on.
There's not a whole lot of kind of physical buttons
and controls around here, though
I am glad to see that Land Rover ditched
kind of the two-screen display for a single screen up here,
which is now bigger: It's 13.1 inches.
And below, you don't get another silly screen
for the climate controls.
There's some physical dials here
and a little bit more intuitive of a setup.
Now, there still are plenty of kinda touch controls,
which we're not really fans of
in any car across the industry.
Now, they are on the steering wheel
and for some of these climate functions,
but it's nice to see Land Rover
didn't go completely off the deep end.
You still get things like a physical volume knob,
physical knobs here for the temperature
and so on and so forth.
Now, in terms of overall cabin quality, in a Range Rover,
you'd expect it to just be top-notch
and Land Rover doesn't disappoint.
This car here at the auto show
just has a ton of opulence going on.
This is the SV model,
the top version of the Range Rover,
or one of the top versions I should say.
And all around you,
there's just stitched soft-touch coverings
to just about everything,
even down to obscure areas like in the footwells.
The seats sit upright. They're supremely comfortable here.
There's a lot of little details.
Things like ceramic edging around some of these knobs here.
There's laser-etched wood trim, which has kind of a cool,
pretty complicated pattern as you're
toward the front of the car
that kind of actually gets a little simpler
and kind of streamlines as you come toward the rear.
Just, lots of interesting details like that.
Let's go to the backseat.
The opulence continues to the second row of the Range Rover,
including materials and features.
If you get a car like this one here at the auto show,
this is a four-seat model, actually,
with two separated seats in the second row.
There's no third row in this long-wheelbase edition,
and that affords a ton of features here.
Some obviously will be available and not standard.
You get dual screens here:
11.4 inches, up from 10 inches
in the previous-generation Range Rover.
There's power adjustable seats with ottomans
that come out here for both sides.
You get things like an adjustable table here that pops up.
It can actually come back a little bit.
There's a little bit of storage under
and the two sides can actually fan out.
Land Rover says that's big enough to fit a laptop computer.
It can pivot to either side if you want.
Kind of cool there.
Not just that, but other things are power operated too.
You get things like cupholders here.
Again, this opens, powers open, power shut.
And then finally, if you, y'know, want a cold one,
there's a door for the fridge.
Powers down and back up.
Now, as far as third rows go,
it's worth noting that the Navigator
has an exceptionally large third row.
The GLS and the Escalade have workable third rows
in their own right,
and so how does the Range Rover really stack up?
Well, Land Rover says
this is the largest third row it's ever created
in any of its SUVs.
And I gotta say, it's OK -
not up there with Navigator,
maybe not even up with GLS and Escalade, but close.
Kind of in the same territory
as sort of those second-tier ones here.
I'm 6 feet tall, headroom's OK.
Legroom is workable with the seat
kind of in its default position here.
That's not all the way back for the second row.
You can kind of move it forward or back with controls here
from the third row if you want.
But overall, not terrible
and exceptionally high-quality materials here.
Even in luxury vehicles, you usually get really cheap stuff
in the wayback seats.
Nice to see Land Rover keeps things up.
Now in back, there's an available cargo-area partition
that can also function as a backrest
complete with deployable cushions that go on top of it.
That would give you sort of this rear-facing tailgate seat
you see here.
And that's gonna be an expensive seat, indeed:
Land Rover says the new Range Rover
will start around $105,000 including destination.
That's at more than $12,000
over the prior-generation Range Rover, which, to be fair,
got up over $200,000 if you checked all the boxes.
We have no doubt that the new generation of Range Rover
will do the same thing,
which means it could do battle
with the likes of the Bentley Bentayga,
the Aston Martin DBX.
Now, if you have this sort of coin
to be cross-shopping those vehicles
or a different kind of coin,
maybe just to be shopping a Range Rover
against a well-optioned Escalade or Navigator,
well, Land Rover has something for you.
And it all goes on sale in the spring of 2022.