8.1 seconds to 100 km/h is what JLR says it can do, and it can get close to it at 8.5 seconds. Yet the weight it shed did wonders, reducing the load on the engine, allowing for a big SUV that can really move if you want it to. If you're a Land Rover purist, you probably won't like that fact.īy no means is the lighter Land Rover Discovery 5 a lightweight it's still a big, heavy vehicle at 2.2 tonnes. It's a unibody, one that makes use of aluminum on the structural bits and steel on the doors. One of the primary reasons is that - like the Range Rover - the Discovery no longer has a ladder frame. The Discovery 5 models with the four-cylinder engines are even lighter at about 2100. Whereas older LR4 and LR3 Discovery vehicles tipped the scales at under or around 2500 kilos, the Discovery 5 weighs in at about 2200. Now while it may seem like a downer to have a fairly aged engine that has been carried over since the Ford days of JLR, there is one thing to consider: the Disco 5 is much lighter than before. Actually, it's from their former family at Ford, and it makes 258 PS and a whopping 600 Newton-meters of torque for the 8-speed automatic to send to all four wheels.

The middle row is where we'd like to sit if we're not driving as it's exceptionally comfortable, and comes with the usual armrest for even better comfort for long distances or long hours in traffic.īehind that long, long hood is the 3.0-liter V6 turbodiesel from Land Rover. It folds down to provide plenty of cargo space too if you need it. The high-set third row isn't bad at all even for larger adults there's hip room and a fair amount of legroom, and if you're taller you'll love the scalloped ceiling which gives extra headroom. The Discovery is bigger than before, and that allows for a more generous allocation of space if you're seated in the back. Mostly, I found myself playing around with the adjustable air suspension it's unusually fun to raise and lower the Discovery's ride height at will. This allows you to select optimal settings for different driving surfaces like sand, mud, rocks and more. There are controls just aft of the shifter for the intelligent off-road functions like the latest Terrain Response system. That's the right way to do it, I think, leaving the driver's space with the essentials for operation like that dial-type shifter that rises from the center console.īeing a Land Rover, this one comes with plenty of off-road tech that you can use if or when you decide to take the road never traveled. The dashboard and controls are rather minimalist as Land Rover tried to centralize as many of the functions as they can using buttons on the steering wheel and on the touchscreen infotainment system. And the leather is impeccable I particularly liked the comfort of the front seats, along with the adjustable seat mounted center armrests which are separate from the console box.

Interior panels fit together with consistency more akin to something German or even custom. A lot of people poke fun at the quality of British cars, but there's none of the sort here. It's not a flashy interior, and it shouldn't be there were just subdued hues with cream, black, and metallic trim without faux wood. That stateliness continues inside, and properly so. I'm glad they preserved the distinctive hump on the roof from older Discovery models to provide more headroom for the theater-style seats of the third row passengers. LR's designers did try to create a separation between the glass area and the roof by blacking out the A-pillars, B-pillars, and a thin black strip on the C-pillars, but it's quite hard to notice with a dark paint scheme on the body. The panels are more rounded than the angular models that we've seen before. The design is somewhat more mature definitely clean and subtle without any kind of flash or bling. There's a certain stateliness about the look of the new Disco 5 which I quite like, and much of it was inspired by the look of the current Range Rover. Confused yet? Don't worry, so are we when we were observing what LR was doing at the time. They then updated it and called it the Discovery 3/LR3 until 2009, and another facelifted model as the LR4 or Discovery 4 until 2017. After that, Land Rover launched the second generation with a new frame. The reason for the unusual “generation” numbering system is because they count them by series the 1989-2004 model had two series numbers, with the original Series 1 from 1989 to 1999 followed by the Series 2 (technically a major upgrade and redesign) until 2004. That makes this Discovery 5 the third generation. There have been only two prior generations of the Discovery, the first was launched 20 years ago in 1989, followed by a second generation in 2004. The Disco we're looking at here is the 5, but it's not really a fifth generation in terms of overall architecture per se.

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