Each week our team of experienced senior road testers pick out a new model from the world of innovative, premium and performance badges, and put it through its paces.
Heritage
Those with a school-boy understanding of Latin will recall that velare means to hide, and velar is a declension the verb. The Velar badge first adorned the original Range Rover prototype, as Rover engineers strove to keep the vehicle a secret.
The modern Velar, a luxury SUV from Land Rover, arrived last year and sits in the Range Rover family somewhere between the Evoque, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover proper, depending on specification and price, which means it’s becoming a very crowded range. Why you’d have a Range Rover Sport when you could have this thing of wonder, which shifts the game perceptibly, specifically inside the car, is anyone’s guess. We are a huge, huge fan of this car.
Design
Really, this is what this car is all about, and is there anything wrong with that? It’s a given that Land Rovers are entirely capable off-road, and the group engines are no longer a surprise – a 2.0-litre diesel, 3.0-litre diesel and 5.0 monster petrol. What is a surprise is what Land Rover has been beavering away designing in its studios over the past couple of years: an interior that is very much next-step stuff. A smooth glass panel sits beneath a large touchscreen which rotates silently out of the dashboard when you start the engine. The glass panel has functions embedded in it, via lit-up graphics which sit under the glass. In addition, as you select the various off-road terrains, the background graphic transforms to an entire landscape that echoes the terrain you’ve chosen – dynamic, sand, ruts, snow, etc. If you select a song on your iPhone via the screen, the background reflects a set image of the album cover. It’s just beautiful.
As are the materials used. A genius woman called Amy Fraschella has been in charge of these, and our car had a perfectly complementing series of cream material with an industrial yet feminine pattern, brushed metals and grey smart woven fabrics. It’s a lesson Aston Martin, just round the corner at Gaydon, would do well to take note off.
Performance
Our R-Dynamic version, at the top of the range, comes with Land Rover’s 3.0-litre, twin-turbo V6 diesel. It’s interesting – we’ve been running the 2.0-litre dials in a Disco for six months and, while it’s fine and the increased fuel economy is welcome, my, the 300 horsepower, 700Nm V6 is a treat in a smaller car. It drives beautifully with the eight-speed automatic transmission and limited lateral roll. It really feels like the ideal urban SUV, with light, sharp steering and good visibility, but, of course, you know you have top-notch off-road capability should you need it.
Passion
This inspires jaw-dropping responses when passengers step inside. It’s the closest a brand has got to Volvo, and that’s a real compliment, in terms of interiors. The Velar really drives (sorry) home the idea of the car as The Third Space, after home and office, in which passengers will play, work, relax and communicate in the future, when we’re all being driven around in autonomous, electric pods. It supports the lifestyle of the owner – it takes mechanical excellence as a given and does not apologise for putting interior comfort and design first – that may come as something of a head-scratcher to motoring journalists from the likes of Autocar or Auto Express, who always like to know first and foremost how a car oversteers, but, sorry guys, those days are gone. Land Rover knows that, and has produced this. Full marks.
Price as driven: £70,530 (from £53,000)
range rover
Velar
the goodwood test
