Big off-roaders are desperately unfashionable - until you really need them

STORM DESMOND was horrid – and I wasn’t even in it. It’s no fun flicking on Sky News and seeing somewhere you love largely underwater.

My three-year student stint in Carlisle included (quite literally) wading through the 2005 floods, which is why I went up there the other weekend to help people stuck in the same position. It’s deeply saddening to see the picturesque villages I all too often frequent – particularly Keswick and Pooley Bridge – being mauled by the savagery of the waters.

Yet I did spot one good thing – other than the sheer generosity of people pitching in to help – to come out of all the depressing news coverage. Footage of off-roaders doing useful things and helping with the rescue efforts.

Chances are if it wasn’t a commandeered canoe or a dinghy doing the rescue work, it was a Land Rover Defender or a Mitsubishi Shogun. Lots of my petrolhead pals rail against my love of off-roaders and argue they’re thirsty and expensive and don’t handle properly – and in most cases, they’re absolutely right.

But when the chips are down you’ll want a rugged off-roader – and I mean a proper one with chunky tyres and four-wheel-drive, not a supermini that thinks it’s on Countryfile – on your side.

The Defender’s still the 4x4 of choice for the rescue agencies, even in its twilight years, but don’t fret if you can’t afford the £23,100 for a new one (or even the £4-5k a decent used one costs).

On the same weekend Storm Desmond was doing its worst a mate and I went green-laning in a 1998 Range Rover – a fully working, leather lined mountain goat of a motor that cost just £1700.

If you’re scared of the Rangie’s running costs there’s the Vauxhall Frontera – all it took was a quick flick through the classifieds to find three for under a grand. It’s the same story with the petite-but-persistent Suzuki Jimny, the Isuzu Trooper and the older iterations of Jeep’s Cherokee – and don’t forget the original Land Rover Discovery either.

They’re cheap because they’re out of fashion - these days everyone wants a car that looks, rather than acts, like a big off-roader – but any of this lot will run rings around a Qashqai or a Captur should the gritters forget to call by your place over Christmas.

I know big off-roaders are thirsty and antisocial and clog up the school run far more than a Fiesta does – but I bet I know which Storm Desmond’s victims were happier to see.

The big surprise about the P38 Range Rover

IT’S not every eleven-year-old who gets the gig of redesigning Southport Pier. Why subcontract Southport’s seaside flagship out to some high-flying architect when you can get a bunch of schoolkids to do it?

Yet that’s exactly what I – and about 30 of my classmates – got asked to as a school project once. Obviously my design was the best of the bunch, but I remember having an argument with the council mandarin who came in to judge our efforts, who disagreed with my vision of the pier’s future. Having listened to our views, the council boffins went off – and then ordered the pier buildings to replaced with what I recall being memorably described at the time as an ‘airport terminal on stilts’.

I was thinking about this the other day when driving around in something else that had the difficult task of following up a decades-old institution – the second generation Range Rover. Any replacement for anything that’s universally loved is always going to get a rough ride. The 1994-2002 model is definitely the Rangie’s difficult second album.

It arrives in the dock charged with two counts of not being a proper Range Rover – one that it looks like a Metrocab and the other that it’s horrendously unreliable.

It’s tricky to defend the latter because I remember the car’s Achille’s heel – the complicated air suspension system – letting go on a friend’s 4.0 SE a couple of years ago and prompting a four-figure bill. Yet look back at its showings in the customer satisfaction surveys and you’ll find it was just as bad as Land Rover’s other offerings at the time – certainly, Discovery owners were equally frustrated. The Range Rover’s come on in leaps and bounds since the 1990s – but so have plenty of other cars.

But get past that – and the looks, which actually improved with the subtle nips and tucks over the years – and you’ll discover it feels like a Range Rover.

All the Range Rovers I’ve driven over the years – from a 1970 two-door to the 500bhp leviathan that tops today’s range – give you this wonderful feeling of being slightly invincible. You feel secure knowing that even if your alloys are six inches deep in thick mud you’ll power out of it effortlessly – and the most you’ll have to worry about is what position your electrically-operated leather seat should be in.

The second-gen Range Rover does all of that. Yes, it’s thirsty, but so is every other big off-roader, and because people dismiss the ‘bad’ Range Rover it’s a lot cheaper than its predecessor.

As second acts go it was brilliant. Although not as brilliant as my schoolboy redesign of Southport Pier was.

The Trip isn't helping my Range Rover infatuation

REAL ale, good food, uncannily accurate Michael Caine impressions and ABBA's The Winner Takes It All.

If that sounds like a familiar celluloid combination then chances are you are - like me - a fan of The Trip, the excellent comedy Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and the BBC teamed up to make a couple of years ago. In essence, it takes up the two-blokes-on-a-trip-to-Cumbria format employed so elegantly in Withnail and I, chucks in some sidesplittingly funny improvisation from two of the country's best known comedy actors, and then leaves to simmer in some of the finest restaurants the north of England has to offer.

The Trip is probably one of the most worn-out DVDs in my collection - car chase movies and Bond films aside - so it delighted me no end to discover from a friend that plans are in the pipeline to make a second series, this time moving the restaurant-based action from the Lake District to Italy.

I mention The Trip in a motoring blog, however, because it did such a wonderful job of showcasing one of my favourite cars, the Range Rover, in the Lake District, which is one of the places I love taking a car most. In fact, AF59 WEC almost became one of the characters, seemingly featuring in almost every shot which didn't involve Steve and Rob exchanging Roger Moore impressions over a glass of white wine. Somehow, in the cold, muddy, grey Lakeland vistas, the Range Rover just looks right somehow, even if it doesn't actually venture off road once. Repeated viewings haven't helped my Range Rover infatuation at all!

I can only hope, however, the new series retains part of what gave the show a distinctly petrolhead whiff - shots of suitable set of wheels wafting serenely through whatever sublime scenery there is to offer. It'd probably be right, therefore, for the second series to feature an Alfa or a Maserati strutting its stuff in the Italian countryside.

Getting the comedy balance just right is something I'm really looking forward to with The Trip's second outing. Until then, however, savour just some of the stunning Range Rover shots the series' creators captured in the Cumbrian countryside...

Video: The new Range Rover

THIS is Land Rover's TV advert for what'll be by far its most expensive offering when it hits the showrooms early this year; the new, full-size Range Rover.

I know this is the second Range Rover article in as many days and adverts aren't really my thing, but this one's got all the right ingredients. Mountain scenery, winding Alpine roads, a brief look at what it can actually do off-road, some Matt Monro on the stereo and - perhaps best of all - a quick nod towards the beautiful 1970 original that started it all. It is The Italian Job for 4x4 enthusiasts.

As if I wasn't dreaming of owning one already...

Fire up the... Range Rover Evoque

TO appreciate this baby off-roader you have to think not in terms of ground clearance, horsepower or litres of loadspace. It is a car callibrated best in column inches, retweets and Facebook likes.

The Range Rover Evoque is, thanks to its near-constant appearances in the likes of Heat and Hello! and the input of Victoria Beckham's style know-how in its inception, one of the coolest cars on the planet right now. It's also one of the hardest to judge with an open mind - not only am I from a family of Range Rover owners, I'm aware too that it's made right here in the north west, in a Liverpool factory and was developed with help from the British taxpayer. Not that you're interested in that. What you want to know is if it's any good.

First impressions are good - the five door 2.2 diesel I tested looks, for want of a better word, fabulous, although its three-door sibling is even more stylish. Sharply creased and with a distinctive squint at the front end, it manages to look like a Range Rover without inducing the environmentalists' irk its bigger brother manages.

In fact, the question everyone's asked me is whether that shallow rear window makes it tricky to see out of, but it doesn't. It is no harder to drive than a Ford Mondeo, which is perhaps no big surprise given the two are - via Land Rover's Freelander - distant relations under the skin. In fact, the biggest dissapointment is that you lose the commanding driving position Land Rover owners know and love, but you'll forgive that because it handles crisply and tidily on even the trickiest of roads.

The price to pay for all of that, naturally, is the price itself; you can get an entry level version for around £28,000 but the ED4 version I drove was nearer to £36,000. If you're more worried about value and practicality you definitely get more for your money by going for the Freelander, but that's missing the point. The quality of the interior, the sportier drive and the looks, to my mind, make the Evoque more than worthy of the extra outlay.

As much as I hate coming to an obvious conclusion the Evoque is just too good for the pop singers and TV stars to keep to themselves.

The all new Range Rover easily beats an express train. If only I could afford one

MY FAVOURITE means of lounging in luxury on the way down to London might be no more, but that's okay because Land Rover's come up with a solution.

I have to admit to feeling a slight tinge of sadness when I read that as of December the express train services along the West Coast Mainline will no longer be run by Virgin, because for the best part of a decade it's been the quickest, comfiest way to get to the capital. The car, as much as I like to sing its praises, simply can't shift you from the north west to central London in a shade over two hours.

That said, the car offers you a privacy even the swishest trains can't and if you're rich enough to regularly travel Virgin First Class then there's a new contender for your considerable amount of cash; the first new Range Rover in 11 years. Pedants, I know, will point out there's been 2005's Sport and last year's Evoque for anybody after a fresher car with those famous capital letters spelt out across the bonnet, but this is the big, proper Range Rover.

The big news for anyone planning on using one to impress their fellow golf club members/tow a horsebox/feature in a hip hop video (delete as appropriate) is that Land Rover have listened to the environmentalists and used a blend of lightweight materials and clever engines to make it less offensive to Greenpeace activists. The old one weighed twice as much as a Ford Mondeo and was so big it could qualify for its own postcode, but the new one manages to shave nearly half a tonne when it sits on the EU's set of scales.

It's also a credit to the designers of the outgoing one that it doesn't look dated and it seems it's business as usual with the new one - maybe it's not quite as bluntly imposing, but it's sleeker and showier, although I'm not entirely sure about the curious slats running down the front doors. A Range Rover is like one of those flats you see Kevin McCloud getting excited about; the elegance is in its simplicity.

There's only one problem. The new Range Rover's going to be more upmarket - or in layman's English, even more expensive - than the old one, so it means that for me at least the comfiest way to get to London is still going to be by train.

First West Coast Ltd, please don't ruin it...

The Range Rover Evoque Convertible - the latest in a long line of open top Land Rovers

LAND ROVER has just raised the stakes when it comes to desirable off-roaders - by lowering the roof on the baby Range Rover Evoque.

The company's just shown off this 'concept' (as in a dead cert for actual production) for an open-top version of the award-winning Evoque, which it reckons is going to carve a new niche by blending open air fun with legendary Land Rover mudplugging ability.

Gerry McGovern, the company's design director, said:

"The Evoque lends itself beautifully to the idea of a convertible. This study is not a traditional convertible design execution - instead we have worked with the balance of the Evoque's lines to retain its distinctive shape and create something that is unique and, we believe, highly desirable."

Except, of course, it's not quite as new a concept as you might think. While it would be the first production Range Rover convertible its creators are more than familiar with chopping the roofs of their other products - the first generation Freelander was available with a fabric roof at the rear, while the traditional, leaf-sprung Land Rovers have been available with canvas roofs going right the way back to the very first Series One in 1948.

It's also true that open-top Range Rovers have been available from aftermarket customisers for donkey's years - if you don't believe me, check out the very slick example you could clock way back in 1983 in the opening scenes of Octopussy.

But that doesn't mean I don't think Jaguar Land Rover's onto a winner with this al-fresco version of the acclaimed Evoque. They say they've got no plans to put into production.

Yet...

Range Rover Evoque: the perfect motor for a mysterious millionaire

I AM, according to a letter which landed in The Champion's postbox the other day, about to be rich beyond my wildest dreams.

Naturally, all I need to do is pass on all my personal and account details to a mysterious man in Hong Kong and no less than $14.7m will be mine. This impending windfall, which is not at all suspicious, puts me in a position to buy the new baby Range Rover - you know, the one that's getting all the glowing reviews at the minute. But is it a proper Land Rover?

That's the big question for the Evoque, the third and smallest take on the luxury off-roader to date, and it seems the jury's still out. The Land Rover traditionalists, over their pint of real ale, will readily point out that it's loosely based on the current Freelander, which is itself loosely based - shock horror - on the Ford Mondeo. They'll also choke on their Hobgoblin when they discover Ranulph Fiennes and Chris Boddington weren't used as design consultants. But Victoria Beckham was.

Annoyingly, I can't be of much help in giving a verdict on the Evoque because I haven't driven it yet, but I can point out one thing. It follows a very proud Land Rover tradition of pissing traditionalists off.

The last spin on the Range Rover theme, 2005's Range Rover Sport, was denounced by the traditionalists for being a footballer's chariot, but within two years it had reputedly become the most profitable vehicle then-owners Ford made. The original Freelander, when that got launched, was written off as being a girly Toyota RAV4 rival with an MGF engine and a tent on the back. Luckily, it also had four-wheel-drive and Hill Descent Control and therefore could hold its own in the rough stuff. My point is that Land Rover, as a company, has been creating niches for itself with the country set for decades.

All of which means a leaner, cleaner, greener Range Rover has got to be a consideration for a new millionaire like myself, because it brings the iconic badge and off-road ability of the original to something that won't wind Greenpeace up. That it looks fantastically sharp, particularly as a three-door, is only going to work in its favour.

I think the Evoque's going to be great, and the good news is that you can buy one too. All you need to do is send a small fee and all your details to that man from Nigeria who's been emailing you...

Fire up the... Range Rover Classic

MAYBE it's being in my twenties or having some journalistic sense of derring-do, but I'm honestly not scared of crashing a new car.

Whether it's a supermini for six grand or a swish saloon for sixty, there's always a sense of that if you prang it - and luckily, I never have - they can always make another one. But being entrusted with a priceless piece of Britain's motoring heritage? Terrifying, to be honest.

It's not often you get given the chance to drive the very first production Range Rover ever made, which has been quietly taken out of the retirement to celebrate its 40th anniversary. It's a great way of finding out just how much the most famous 4x4xfar, and motoring has a whole, have come on since 1970. At least I'm in familiar surroundings; my dad owns one in exactly the same Tuscan Blue shade as this one.

The first thing you notice is the sound those big doors - and unlike modern Range Rovers, there are only two - make. Modern cars all have the same, slightly dull thud, but the bank vault metallic clink you get here is from a bygone era. It's the sound of the Sixties, but like The Beatles, it still sounds great.

But the best bit is the burble the Rover V8 under the bonnet makes when you start it up, which even today is still the soundtrack of an entire generation of British cars. It's just a shame that it's drowned out by the whining transmission, which really will give you a headache if you go much about forty.

Compared with almost any modern motor you have to admit it's absolutely terrible; it's noisy, it rolls and lurches through the corners, it's not actually terribly well equipped for a luxury car, realistically you're going to struggle to get past fifty, and it drinks like a fish. It's a creaking British Leyland relic, but I love to bits.

Even with petrol touching £1.20 a litre it just about makes sense - it's tax exempt, for starters - but it's not only blessed with timeless styling, unstoppable off-road ability and an elegance you just don't get from most new cars.

Just make sure you don't crash it.

As published in The Champion on June 16, 2010

Happy birthday, Range Rover

A BRITISH bruiser beloved of footballers and farmers alike is celebrating a birthday bash later this month.

Whether you think it's a cherished classic or a symbol of global warming you can't deny the Range Rover's impact on motoring both here in the UK and abroad, and this month its makers are keen to help the luxury off-roader celebrate its fortieth anniversary.

“Land Rover has a unique history of product innovation, but the Range Rover probably remains the most historically significant vehicle we have ever launched. It is one of the most important vehicles in the history of motoring,” said Phil Popham, managing director of Land Rover, which still makes the model today at its factory in Solihull, in the West Midlands.

“The Range Rover is really four vehicles in one. It's a seven-days-a-week luxury motor car; a leisure vehicle that will range far and wide on the highways and noways of the world; a high performance car for long distance travel; and a working cross-country vehicle. From princes to politicians, from rock gods to rock climbers, from footballers to farmers, the Range Rover has always appealed to a diverse group of customers.”

Today's Range Rover - and its slightly smaller brother, the Range Rover Sport - is a far cry from the original version of 1970. which had two doors, a spartan interior and wind-up windows but for four decades the model has proven popular with royalty and rock stars at one end and farmers and the police at the other.

But in recent years it has also proven a controversial target for the environmental lobby, and in 2005 activists from Greenpeace targeted the factory where it is made as a symbol of their disdain for vehicles with high fuel consumption and emissions.

Later this year, the LRX, a further member of the Range Rover family will be added, meaning the name will appear on no less than three different cars.

I've road tested the very first production Range Rover as part of my duties as Champion motoring writer. Will it still impress forty years on? Find out here on Life On Cars later this week.

Fire up the...Cobra

I ALREADY know what you're about to ask: is it a real one?

That's what people always ask if you're anywhere near one of the most iconic sports car shapes ever crafted, but I reckon this is much more appealing than other AC Cobras. This is muscle car motoring with a British Leyland twist!

The AC Cobra, first introduced in 1962, was one of the more enduring results of our special relationship with America; we sent them the AC Ace, and they beefed it up into a Ford V8 powered rocketship of a roadster. The hairy-chested originals are now worth millions and hugely sought after, but why worry when you get a rorty reinterpretation for a lot less?

Peel the skin away on the beautifully-crafted replica I've just driven and some of bits might seem more than familiar; the engine's still a V8, but it's actually Rover's 3.5 litre lump. As in the one you know and love from legions of Range Rovers and an entire generation of the swish saloons your dad used to drive. Even the transmission is lifted from Rover's SD1 Vitesse.

My dad still has an Eighties Range Rover and after years of being driven everywhere in them I reckon the sound it makes is actually music to the ears; okay, it's not exactly Lady Gaga in the pop stakes but it's still burbly and melodic to listen to, like Oasis on one of their earlier albums. The point is, I think as engines go the Rover V8 makes easily the nicest noise, and wrapping it in something as gorgeously glamourous as a Cobra with a sports exhaust is like playing your favourite CD in a Bang and Olufsen stereo. Sublime, in other words.

Even in my brief, ten minute blast I could tell the car's a charmer, and not just because of the wonderly woofly noise it makes. I'm used to driver's cars being light, twinkletoed things that dart from corner to corner, but the Cobra was loud in a laid-back way, as if its creators have somehow found a way of reviving Barry White as a car. People say the original Cobra's a scary thing to handle, but with a British Leyland twist it's like hanging out with an old mate, only one who's been given a megaphone.

So no, this blend of Sixties style with Engineering isn't a real Cobra. It's much better than that.

Old cars: brilliant but rubbish

IT’LL be all over by Christmas, apparently.

This isn’t just the mantra of governments waiting for wars to end – quite poignant at the moment, given it’s Remembrance Sunday – but of scores of people across the region who’ve started a classic car project. And still haven’t finished yet.

Take this Range Rover, for example. My dad bought it as a quick project nine years ago, when my biggest worries were GCSEs and figuring out how girls worked. Despite threatening to pass an MOT for at least half a decade it’s still loitering around his garage, sulking whenever someone tries to start it.

I’m a big fan of saving motors from meeting their maker, but just think what’s happened in that time. We’ve been in and out of Iraq, entire world economies have collapsed, and Oasis have split up. Most worryingly, the price of the jungle juice this V8 beast drinks daily has rocketed, meaning running around in something that struggles to get 15 miles to a gallon isn’t exactly fashionable anymore.



My Mini – fresh from a ribbing live on Dune FM last weekend – isn’t quite so severe, but the problem’s the same. It’s finally back in business after a broken braking system sentenced me to three weeks on the buses instead, but even now there’s a list of things that need sorting out. There’s always things always need sorting out.

It is possible to mend the eternal list of problems, but given that most normal people have other things to keep them occupied – like lives – any repairs are confined to the weekends, when anywhere that might sell you the spare parts is closed. This is the main reason why all those old cars you see on people’s driveways never move.

Look, if you really want to take on a rapidly decaying piece of our automotive heritage, please make sure you’ve got a car that actually works as well.

I suppose old cars are a bit more amusing than spending every night watching whatever Jedward is, which I doubt will still be annoying us in nine years’ time.

That’ll all be over by Christmas too, apparently…