It's a long time now since Land Rover devoted any energy whatever to promoting the Range Rover as an off-roader. Depsite its undoubted prowess on muddy hills and through rivers, it has been marketed as nothing but a luxury car for years, and I can't help thinking that something similar might be about to happen with the Discovery.I heard something odd about this car a few months ago (though I have to say right now that this is hearsay, since I wasn't there at the time). A friend who owns a previous-generation version went into his local Land Rover dealership to express an interest in buying a new one, and was surprised to be told - possibly because of sales quota for that month, or something of the sort - that there was no point because the two models were so similar.Well, in many respects they are similar. Technically, Discoveries 3 and 4 are far more closely related than 3 was to 2, or than 2 was to 1. But as our launch report explains, the detail differences between 3 and 4 are enormous.No Discovery has ever looked elegant, but the latest one has a softer appearance than any of its predecessors, its interior is the sort of thing you might expect to find in a luxury saloon, and the ride and handling are of a sort which ten years ago would have seemed impossible in anything wearing a Land Rover badge.The substantial weight of the Discovery, and the fact that so much of this weight is so high above the tarmac, put practical limits on how good its road behaviour can be, but I must say that Land Rover can't be far from having reached those limits. No saloon car would - or at least should - have this amount of body movement, but the Discovery's chassis engineers have played the hand they were dealt quite brilliantly. I put a lot of motorway miles under the test car's wheels in the course of two days, and I can safely say that I would not have enjoyed the process in any previous Discovery to quite the same extent as I did in this one.It's not just the ride quality, or the very high level of comfort provided by, for example, the excellent seats. It's also the fact that the three-litre TDV6 turbo diesel engine is so quiet - no petrol-fuelled Land Rover product spoke in such a gentle whisper as recently as the turn of the century.That engine works well, too, as much here as it does in the Jaguars to which it is also fitted. It has enough power to push the Discovery from rest to 62mph in under ten seconds, yet it will beat 30mpg on a motorway run, as long as you don't push it too hard.In the range-topping HSE form tested here it's pretty expensive (nearly £50,000 at the time of writing), but you can save nearly £14,000 by going for the most basic GS, or over £16,000 if you're interested in a GS with the older, and not as good, 2.7-litre engine. If you think of the Discovery as a luxury car, though, the HSE trim level seems to be the most appropriate. Engine 2993 cc, 6 cylinders Power 245 bhp @4000 rpm Torque 442.6 ib/ft @2000 rpm Transmission 6 speed auto Fuel/CO2 30.4 mpg / 244 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 9sec Top speed 112 mph Price From £48336.00 approx Release date 01/09/2009
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