If ever a country was aptly named – during the winter months, at least – it's Iceland. Here, in the depths of January, it's whiter than white – covered by a liberal dose of snow and ice, the supply of which appears never-ending. I'm sitting inside a brand-new Land Rover Discovery Sport, unable to proceed along our route to the hotel on our first night in the country, because (I think) a bus or some other commercial vehicle has skidded out of control and is blocking what was once probably a very good road. I say "I think" because there's simply no way on earth I'm getting out to investigate.
The snow is blowing horizontally from every direction, disorientating road users and rescue teams alike. It’s possibly what being inside a washing machine’s spin cycle is like, only a lot colder, so I patiently sit it out until one of Land Rover’s hardy team taps my window to tell me that, at last, we’ve been granted permission to journey across the original route. Only us, mind, because our convoy is made up of nothing but Land Rover vehicles. I gulp, my palms begin to perspire with nervous anticipation of what lies ahead, my head pounds as adrenaline courses through my veins. This is a Land Rover product launch and, by now, I should expect that the experience will always be extreme.
Probably more than any other company, Land Rover puts its money where its mouth is. I’ve driven the company’s new cars across treacherous mountain ranges in Argentina, through rivers in Scotland and mudbaths in England. I’ve driven them across sodden fields in Wales, along aircraft runways at maximum speed and even on off-road assault courses set up within the belly of a disused Boeing 747. Every time I attend a Land Rover launch I think the same thing: they can’t possibly top this. And then they do exactly that.
Not that the Land Rover team has placed a special order for extreme Icelandic weather, mind you. This place is infamous for its instantly changeable weather fronts and only a few days ago the skies were clear and you could see how green the hillsides really are. And now, with the seat heaters on and the screen demisters set to maximum attack, I’m wondering if tonight we’ll end up being helicoptered out of this mess. I’ve driven in blizzard conditions before, but this is more extreme than anything I’ve so far encountered.
Why am I here when I could be comfortable in my own bed at home? Because the Land Rover LR2 is dead, that’s why. The stumpy, boxy wonder has quietly shuffled off this mortal coil to be replaced by this: a truly grown-up-looking car that Land Rover knows will soon be making up its “bread and butter” sales all over the world. The Discovery Sport, far from being an LR2 that’s been given a funky facelift, is a totally new car from the ground up and it’s an extremely important new model for a company that’s riding the crest of a sales wave right now – a wave that’s showing no signs of crashing to shore anytime soon.
A throwback to the days when Land Rover was part of Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, the LR2 began life in 1997 as the Freelander, when the company was owned by BMW – a compact SUV that soon became Europe’s best-selling four-wheel-drive car, something that confounded many critics because, truth be told, it wasn’t very good. One owner described to me in 1999 what it was like to change gear in his manual Freelander: “Two stirs to the left and I can eventually get it into second.”
Reliability woes affected the Rover engines that many were fitted with and the car’s resale values began to free-fall. When the second generation came along in 2006, in many markets the Freelander name was (understandably) dropped for the LR2 moniker and the model’s reputation gradually began to heal.
But now it’s gone and Land Rover is streamlining its model ranges. This year it is understood that the car that started it all – the Defender – will cease to be, after which there will be only two model lines: Range Rover and Discovery. Within the Range Rover brand sits the eponymous model, its Sport sibling and the still-futuristic Evoque. Discovery starts with this Sport model and the full-size car is expected to launch sometime in 2016. It all makes sense, especially when you get to see the Disco Sport with your own eyes.
Yes, it looks like an Evoque right up to the B-pillars, but that’s no bad thing. It’s the rear end that sets this car apart, though, and its brilliant mix of styling cues is possibly the best balanced of the lot and easily more pleasing to the eye than the Range Rover and RR Sport. It looks sleek, grown-up and cosmopolitan but still with an air of downright practicality.
Land Rover has cleverly given the Disco Sport seven seats. Officially referred to as a “five-plus-two-seater”, don’t think for a second that this is some sort of people-carrier – it isn’t. It just makes the car attractive to a wider audience than ever before and this was always a major selling point of the original Discovery anyway. None of its rivals (BMW X3, Audi Q5 et al) offer this degree of practicality.
The rest of the Discovery Sport’s interior is an exercise in tasteful restraint. The vertical centre stack between the front seats is nicely laid out with intuitive and easy-to-use controls (no need to remove those thermal gloves) and, at long last, there’s a half-decent touch-screen infotainment system that, while still not perfect, is light years ahead of anything else available in a Land Rover or Jaguar product.
The engine we’ll be getting in the UAE is the 2.0L turbocharged four-pot as fitted to the Evoque, which is good for 240hp and mated to an eight-speed automatic ’box. And while many will react to this news at first by saying that our region won’t be interested in anything with less than six cylinders, just consider how many Evoques you see on our roads. That car has no need for a bigger engine and neither, so far, does this. It’s extremely quiet and has bags of mid-range punch while affording a degree of lightness and fleet-footedness that would be lost if it increased cylinder capacity.
The seats are excellent, as is the driving position, allowing for good visibility all round – essential if taking your car off the beaten track. And, while the track we’re about to traverse is actually a main road, the fact that it’s covered in snow and ice means we’re about to enter the danger zone and we’ll need all the help we can get.
Soon we’re waved through and begin our tortuous journey through the night. The car makes steady and careful progress, and I’m amazed at how efficiently it tackles the adverse conditions. The tyres are slightly studded but it’s the Disco’s brilliantly engineered four-wheel drive system and its specially tuned electronic wizardry that does most of the work.
For the uninitiated, driving on snow is similar to driving on sand. Grip comes and goes when you least expect it and, if you come to a standstill, you often get stuck and have to break out the shovels. Only here you’re likely to get frostbite rather than sunstroke. But, despite the fact that we eventually take the car onto little more than dirt tracks (still completely submerged under the white stuff), it takes everything in its stride. No fuss, no danger, just confident forward motion. Even when our convoy grinds to a halt (the snowplough up ahead ends up getting stuck), the diminutive Discovery soldiers on and we reach the hotel – later than planned but at least we reach it.
The following day we set off in the dark for a full 10 hours of hard driving across spectacular terrain. Weirdly, however, it doesn’t get light here until 10am and it’s dark again by four in the afternoon, so much of our surrounding beauty is missed while we once again make our way through blizzards and along slippery tracks and roads, the edges of which are rendered invisible by the drifting, powdery snow. As the sun’s rays batter their way through, the majesty of this barren hinterland becomes apparent and I fully understand why Iceland has become such a tourist magnet in recent years. It’s one of the last truly unspoilt parts of Europe.
And this brilliant car takes everything Iceland can throw at it, never once letting the side down. It’s entirely predictable, with considered responses from its drivetrain and its all-new suspension technology (it has hydraulic rebound stops in its damper turrets for increased levels of insulation) and refinement levels are always impressive whatever the terrain you happen to be traversing. Even when wading out of its recommended depth through a fast-flowing river, it seeks out grip where other cars would likely find none and hauls itself out safe and sound. Its driver might be panicking but the Discovery Sport seems to laugh in the face of defeat. Relax, everything’s taken care of.
While its on-road dynamics might not be quite as sharp as an X3 or Q5, it matters not. Because the Discovery Sport has an approachable, usable disposition that makes it a genuinely brilliant all-rounder that will look gorgeous either fresh out of the showroom or covered in sticky mud. That it can cope with the rough stuff might be irrelevant to the needs or wishes of most of its eventual owners but it’s reassuring to know that, should you need it to, a Discovery Sport will get you where you need to go no matter what.
More than anything, though, this car is testament to the fact that its maker is at the top of its game. Stylish, capable, comfortable and intelligently designed for modern living, it deserves to be an enormous success. If it can tackle Iceland on a bad couple of days, the Discovery Sport can probably tackle anything.
The 2015 Land Rover Discovery Sport will be available in the first quarter of 2015 and prices start at Dh159,000.
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