If you need an SUV thats good enough to go to boardmeetings as well as the back of beyond then watch this video. Renuka Kirpalani takes the new Range Rover onna drive oit of Mumbai and tells you all about it.
Now the car that i’m test driving today you’ve already seen a lot of you’ve seen hormuz drive it in usa you’ve seen me do an extensive walk around telling you all about its features recently and today i have it here in indian conditions out on our roads to drive it now while our roads may seem like a veritable battlefield at most times from behind the wheel
Let me tell you this feels like a battle tank the extended wheelbase variant is massive in its proportions it’s just over 5 meters long 2.2 meters wide and 1.8 meters tall the wheelbase for the extended wheelbase version is 3.2 meters long and that’s good news for passengers because it opens up acres of room on the inside but driving it in traffic is not
Easy squeezing past the cars when there is a single lane to turn is close to impossible and you also have to ensure you don’t get into smaller lanes it’s a matter of constantly watching the edges over this three crore plus car but visibility is good you’ve got nice massive windscreen uh what i really like also is this quarter glass area uh around the a-pillar
Because it gives you better visibility at the a-pillar uh it just doesn’t block your vision especially when you’re turning at a corner and when you’re seated nice up and high you get this king of the road feel and even rear visibility is fantastic with this clear view and mirror fantastic view comes in handy when you need to watch those edges of this car in
Traffic but once you get out onto more open stretches of road it’s amazing how this massive car feels lighter than you expect on its feet suddenly it doesn’t feel so large as it did surrounded by all the traffic in fact you get the feeling of being invincible sitting one story above most of the other cars and you feel so safe what’s pretty amazing is how easy
It is to maneuver this massive vehicle i mean it’s over five meters long it’s more than two meters wide but yeah i mean because of that rear axle steering just you turning this is so easy it’s just quite incredible now the variant i’m driving is a mild hybrid 3 liter diesel the mild hybrid uses energy recoup during deceleration to assist with fuel and engine
Efficiency it gets off the line pretty smartly and honestly it just does not feel like a 2.5 ton car in fact this engine once it gets going feels really nice and strong and you get a good tug of power when you put your foot down the only thing is you know once you get cruising if you want to get a sudden move on that’s when you begin to feel the weight it
Takes a bit to get going the gearbox is a bit slow to react to and while we’re talking about the gearbox when you are in slower moving traffic like this you know you accelerate decelerate it often tends to just snap into a gear and it feels a bit snappy yeah apart from that once you get moving the shifts are really smooth and you don’t notice them at all the
Range rover also reacts better to hard acceleration rather than gentle getaways you have to be heavy-footed with it the engine is refined but refinement has taken on a new meaning for us with evs and i’ve been driving so many of them lately that ice engines just feel more audible than before so if you want that utter silence the thing to know is that globally
There will be an electric version of this car next year but it will still take a while to make it here quality on the inside of this car is really really fantastic and lots of little details like you look at the leather straps on the grab handles even the roof lining is in leather the knobs have this nice knurled finish around the side everything that you
Touch feel feels rich and premium and you know there are other things to like as well like this screen i mean the graphics are so crisp and clean what i like is that the font is very nice and big so accessing things like your phone list you know especially for someone like me that wears glasses the font is a really nice clear size you also have a lot of settings
Um you know when you’re heading out of town like i am now to a more dynamic section of road that’s when you want to switch over make the car handle a little better for the corners and you can change the settings between comfort and dynamic for your for the performance you can change it for the steering for the gear shift and for the suspension and i’m gonna do
All of that before i hit the windy roads and while i head out you can take a quick look at the host of functions that’s available on the screen now in our earlier walk around we delved into the details of this car you can take a look at that video the link is on your screen right now but here’s a quick highlight overview the acres of space to stretch out
In the back seat with the chauffeur package ventilated seats with a range of massage options rear seat entertainment with hdmi for fire stick a tablet to access all the comfort functions for the rear seat passengers the event suite fold out section that can be used as a picnic chair even in the rain the 13.1 carved pixel pro infotainment display that now comes
With wireless apple carplay as well the 35 speaker meridian sound system with speakers in the headrest for active noise cancellation 3d surround cameras a variety of terrain response modes ride height adjust to three different levels a split tailgate and a full sized spare wheel and of course those hidden until lit tail lamps now while you were watching all
Of that i made my way out of the city traffic into more open country roads the range rover really feels strong stable and planted it gives you a very secure feeling and it doesn’t feel heavy to drive it goes around corners in a stable and planted manner as well of course this is never going to be a car you chuck around corners so i’m not even going there but
You can carry reasonable speeds on winding roads without a flutter the joy of this car is really not having to bother going over the rough stuff you can just power through it the only downside is you hear a lot of sounds from the body other than that the range rover is an effortless cruiser especially for long distance travel which brings me to comfort so i’m
Going to hop in the back seat but the thing is you can’t just hop into this car it’s a big climb up and you will have to haul yourself into the seat with the help of the grab handle well now that i’m seated here and on the go i might as well kick back and relax and get completely comfy and i mean that quite literally when i say kick back and relax as you can
See the chauffeur package opens up masses of space i mean people much taller than me will be comfortable over here as well in fact that seat is so far forward i’m going to just use my leg rest which i can raise from here yeah so just about every adjustment lumbar support headrest seat back base you can change it all and get completely comfortable like i am at
This moment want to recline it a bit more that too can be done this is first class travel isn’t it and there is so much to spoil me over here there’s massage function there’s ventilated seats i can put my sun blinds up i have this nice panoramic sunroof to open out the world to me the amount of electronics in this car is huge everything works at the press
Of a button and they work well like the slider for the sunroof which you just have to toggle to the distance you want to open or close the roof there are the cup holders that pop out at the press of a button or even the armrest itself which closes or opens at the touch of a button but so much electronic is also scary with the scope of more things to go wrong
Still it’s all very high tech and you feel extremely pampered and spoiled in these plush seats you have every luxury available to you even have entertainment over there a great sound system active noise cancellation in my headdress to make sure i’m in this cocoon of silence over here loads to pamper you now the one area where i’m not as pampered as i thought
I’d be is the right quality now don’t get me wrong this is supremely comfortable it is well damped but you know we’ve just experienced such great ride quality on the range rovers before and this one has larger tires so that gives it a kind of granular quality to the ride while the damping is there and it pretty much decimates the bumps and potholes you do feel
The unevenness of the road come through your seats it isn’t intrusive and this back seat is still comfortable i’m just going to get that massage function going and kick back and relax long journeys in this back seat effortless ones and while this is a back seat you can spend hours in i’m not really a backseat kind of person no matter how good it is so i had to
Get back behind the wheel and when land rover is in your dna then you’ve got to show it a bit of the dusty stuff right and you can do it without fear with multiple levels of ground clearance that you can get in fact you can raise this to a massive 295 millimeters off the ground to clear almost any obstacle and there is a host of different terrains that you
Can choose from this terrain response system has enough selection to allow you to hit any kind of off-road situation with ease in fact it has a low traction launch mode as well but we didn’t have any such condition to try it in i just had a short trek across a quarry to get to a spot i cannot in most other cars and i made use of that event suite to take in
The scenery and the silence the new range rover is very modern very high tech and comes packed with features there are a range of variants and engine options to pick from prices range between 2.38 and 4.17 crore the invincible feeling that you get from it is incredible the back seat is super plush and spacious the boot can pack in your luggage and become your
Picnic spot too with its off-road capability you can take it to the most remote location to have that picnic in without a flutter but you can as easily go to a board meeting in it and turn heads quite simply there is no other luxury suv that is quite as versatile
Transcribed from video
New Range Rover driven in India | Review | Autocar India By Autocar India