Up until fairly recently I occasionally wondered if I would end up being the last motoring journalist in the UK, since for a very long time I always seemed to be the youngest guest at any new car press launch. A certain amount of breeding must have taken place, though, and nowadays I can usually have conversations with colleagues who, like me, were unaware of the Beatles when they were still operating as a going concern.It's when they know about, say, Bros only through having read about them in history books that I start worrying. At that point there is always the temptation to put on the metaphorical pipe and slippers and start droning on about the way car launches were in my younger days. Why, I can remember being invited to drive pre-production cars fitted with carburettors, to take one example. And I can also remember when off-road driving was a difficult, thrilling and rewarding process.It really used to be quite scary. Manufacturers would send you over the most unlikely-looking terrain, and you had to believe that the vehicle was able to get across it the way the nice PR people in the hotel had said.It's not like that nowadays. Off-road driving courses are easy. Not because the courses themselves are less challenging than they once were (you still find some real horrors) but because off-roaders do so much of the work for you.The most dramatic recent example of this took place at a Range Rover event. A suitably treacherous route had been laid out, and I was plonked into a Td6 and told to go for it, preferably without doing any damage. And the car coped so well, with so little input from me, that I nearly fell asleep at the wheel.Honest. This was on a Sunday morning, at the end of a more than averagely busy week. I'd done a full day's work on Saturday, and had then managed only a couple of hours' kip before having to get up again at 4am. The off-road test started just before noon, by which time I really felt I needed to be back in bed.Now, ten years ago, the very thought of going off-roading would have produced enough adrenalin to keep me going for the rest of the week. But Range Rovers, despite their reputation as city cars for the unreasonably wealthy, have always been among the best off-roaders you can buy. And the third-generation cars are absolutely loaded with driver aids. I reckoned this was going to be a walk in the park.And so it was. I've been on trickier courses than this one in my time, but it still looked like a bit of a challenge when you watched someone else going over it. From inside the car, though, there was absolutely nothing to it. No part of it was as complex as trying to find a radio station that was playing something I wanted to listen to.The hardest bit, as is often the case, was a very, very steep descent of a hill which was covered not only in mud but in some fairly sizeable rocks. I'd switched on the Hill Descent Control system by this time, so the Range Rover's electronics did everything necessary to keep the speed down to gentle walking pace, and I got to the bottom with almost no personal input at all. In the past I've tried this sort of thing while trying not to make too many whimpering noises, but this time I literally found myself nodding off.Now, HDC is all very well, but I've always been concerned about what happens if it stops working just at the crucial moment. So a few minutes later I took the opportunity to go down the same hill with it switched off. This time I had a little more work to do, but it was still an easy ride, and that made me feel a good deal better. Range Rovers don't need HDC to be able to perform manoeuvres like this - the system is there only to make life easier for the driver.Almost everything you've read about the luxuriousness of modern Range Rovers applies here, even though this was one of the lower-spec models. One thing that did make a big difference was the Td6 turbo diesel engine, which isn't as disastrously thirsty as the petrol V8 but does lose the car a lot of points as a refined on-road cruiser.It produces 174bhp, which sounds like a lot - particularly for a diesel - but isn't really much help in hauling along such a vast machine as this. And when you're pushing it along, which you frequently have to, it makes a lot of noise, much of which comes into the cabin.It's a heavy engine, of course, but I wouldn't have thought that would make much difference in a car that weighs as much as a Range Rover. But my on-road stint, which took in some pretty interesting country roads, suggested that the Td6 is a lot less composed on tarmac than the V8 versions I've driven.Perhaps this is because the V8 is powerful enough to let you drive it gently and still make decent progress. With the Td6 you feel you have to try harder, and maybe I was overdoing it slightly through the bends as a result.Whatever the reason, I don't think the diesel is nearly so much of a luxury car as the V8, which seems strange when you consider the increasing number of perfectly acceptable luxury diesels on the market these days. But it's cheaper to buy and cheaper to run, and perhaps these things make a difference even to people who can afford a Range Rover. Engine 2926cc, 6 cylinders Power 174bhp Fuel/CO2 25.0mpg / 299g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 12.7 seconds Top speed 111mph Price £42,995 Details correct at publication date
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