Price as tested: €40,975
In brief: Stunning to look at, excellent to drive and amazingly capable off-road. Hard to see it being anything other than a hit, but it’s not as affordable as it seems.
Well, this is odd. When your brain hears the words Range Rover it still expects to see a towering two-tonne hunk of metal, clambering over rocks and gorges before depositing its tuxedo-wearing occupants at the nearest five-star hotel. You expect big.
You do not expect to see something roughly Golf-sized (or Golf Plus at any rate), that fits neatly within the confines of a standard car parking space and whose roofline doesn’t extend above your eyeline.
But then the Range Rover Evoque is a very different kind of Range Rover, and truly is a turning point for Land Rover as a whole. Before Evoque, Land Rovers were are, obviously, directly descended from the go-anywhere Maurice Wilks original. Post Evoque, the brand is going to be more about watching its Co2 figures and keeping physical bloat well and truly under control.
The Evoque shares much, mechanically, with the current Land Rover Freelander and will be built in the same factory in Liverpool. But while it’s related, clearly there has been some serious re-engineering work going on under the skin. For a start, there’s the Co2 figure, surely the most important co2 rating that Land Rover will ever release. Pick our four-wheel-drive, 190bhp test car and you’ll emit 149g/km and pay €302 a year in road tax. Compared to the previous lowest Land Rover figure, the 158g/km emitted by the front-drive Freelander.
But wait, coming very soon is a 150bhp front-drive Evoque, whose Co2-figure will be good enough for a Band B, €156 road tax rating. Now that is a breakthrough for the Land Rover and Range Rover brands. Who can accuse the Evoque of being a Chelsea Tractor, even if you’ll need the reticence of a saint to match the claimed fuel consumption figure.
But while it might not be a gas-guzzler, is it still a proper Land Rover? Well, yes and no was what I assumed would be the predictably complicated answer. It looks the part. It might be small, but Gerry McGovern’s design team has succeeded in grafting on all of the appropriate Range Rover styling cues, especially the big, castellated bonnet. It also looks great, to these eyes anyway (better in five-door form than as a more-expensive coupe); a curiously enticing combination of bijou but battle-hardened. Like a Chihuahua with an assault rifle.
Inside, it marks the best Land Rover cabin since the 2002 Range Rover. Gone are the too-cheap main dials of the Discovery and Range Rover Sport, and gone too are the acres of tinny grey plastic that blight the Freelander. However much was down to the involvement of Victoria Beckham (hired by Land Rover as a ‘design consultant’ for the Evoque’s cabin) is debatable, but it’s a success in here. Excellent cabin quality is backed up by understatedly fashionable design and a surprising (given that sloping roofline) amount of space. Love the sculpted leather seats (best seen in a natural tan finish) and the main dials that glow cherry red in Dynamic mode. Love too the surround camera system (whose front cameras dip beneath the waves when wading through standing water) and the simple, clear control layout. Hate (well, maybe hate is slightly too strong) the fiddly, annoying touch-screen infotainment system. A big override button would be useful here, Land Rover. Still, it’s a very impressive cabin that doesn’t sacrifice practicality on the altar of style. Thanks, Posh.
To drive, you won’t be surprised if I tell you it feels much like a Freelander (no bad thing) but better. The steering is surprisingly light, and while the Evoque can be hustled very satisfyingly down a twisting road, you are always aware of a slight numbness to the steering (even in Dynamic mode, with the optional adaptive suspension set to firm) and it makes the already broad-shouldered Evoque feel wider still. There’s also a slight sense of disconnect between the sportily firm ride quality and that finger-light steering. So, while you can feel the hand of Jaguar’s legendary chassis engineer, Mike Cross, as you drive (in fact, it feels surprisingly like the original Toyota RAV4; agile, chuckable, fun) there is an unmissable sense that the Evoque’s dynamic ability has been compromised by the need for fuel-saving electric power steering. In that sense, it isn’t the first, it won’t be the last and it’s certainly not the worst.
Actually, it felt much better in the last version we got to try. In order, we drove a 2.0 turbo petrol Coupe automatic, a 190bhp diesel coupe automatic and, finally, a 190bhp diesel manual five-door. Perhaps it’s down to the weight distribution, or possibly the fact that you’re more in command of the drivetrain, but the manual diesel felt the best balanced of the three.
But can it off-road? Oh buy, can it. Land Rover was doubtlessly carefully controlling the loose surfaces and off-road sections we got to drive the Evoque on, but it climbed and crossed incredibly tough terrain. It will doubtless be stymied by the sort of deep mud and jagged rocks that a bigger Defender or Discovery would surmount, but that is hardly a shame for a car that can trace its chassis roots to the Ford Mondeo. It is in fact startling capable (assuming that you select a four-wheel drive model, of course), even shrugging off the accidental removal of some under-bumper trim on a too-enthusiastically tackled stretch. Ahem.
In town, it feels most at home and that is hardly surprising. SUVs are most commonly used in town, and the substantially female audience that Land Rover is looking to attract with the Evoque is predominantly urbanite. But even in town, in the middle of Liverpool (the Evoque’s home; it’s built in Land Rover’s Halewood plant just outside the Scouse City) Land Rover couldn’t resist demonstrating the Evoque’s urban assault capability. And so, we nosed the Evoque ito a foot-and-a-half of murky brown water inside a 3km disused railway tunnel that runs under the city. It was full of water, mud, slime, rubble and dirt and yet the pretty, urbane, concept-car-look Evoque pushed effortlessly through it all. Perhaps city councils could consider it as a potential congestion-saving measure and open up such tunnels for intra-urban commuting. Land Rovers only allowed.
However, we do have one or two issues and the first is with the pricing structure. €40k for a 150bhp 4WD ‘Pure’ model sounds good, but it’s pretty bare of decent equipment. True, the front-drive model will be cheaper still, but effectively the Evoque is going to be a €50k car if you want yours to have Range Rover appropriate equipment levels. And that is going to make life hard for the Evoque, as it pushes the price above that of an equivalent (but larger) BMW X3, BMW 5 Series Touring, Audi Q5, Mercedes E-Class Estate and many, many more. The Range Rover connection means that, even at €50k, it’s still a bargain compared to full-size RR models, but this is a pricey trinket, be in no doubt.
But a proper Land Rover? Yes, it is, just not as we know it thus far. It’s not a Defender descendant. It’s the start of something entirely new.
Facts & Figures
Land Rover Range Rover Evoque TD4 190 4x4 Pure 5-door
Price as tested: €40,975
Price range: €TBA to €66,920
Capacity: 2,179cc
Power: 190bhp
Torque: 420Nm
Top speed: 200kmh
0-100kmh: 10.0sec
Economy: 5.7l-100km (49.6mpg)
CO2 emissions: 149g/km
Road Tax Band: C €302
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested
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