Feel-good factor
The sloping rear roof-line, especially in white, prompted comparisons with a squashed fag packet. It’s a profile that’s supposed to appeal to younger owners. When I first saw it, lowered from the heavens by a crane during a preview party at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens, I wasn’t convinced. But I’ve a poor record at predicting future taste — I thought the Mercedes 190/C Class would never catch on, that the Jaguar S-Type would — and early indications are that I’ve got it wrong again. The car has garnered more than 20,000 advance orders and when Autocar did a photo shoot in New York a passer-by crossed the street to say, ‘I don’t know what it is but I need to know where I can get one.’
It is, of course, the new baby Range Rover, the Evoque. Shorter than a Golf, it comes with three or five doors, costs £28,950–£39,995 and in 187bhp 2.2 diesel form drinks fuel at an EU combined average of 44.1mpg (as with all these artificial EU test figures, assume 5–10mpg less for real-world driving). It’s made at Halewood on the same production line as the successful new Freelander, with which it shares about 30 per cent of its design architecture. It does what any comparable 4X4 SUV will do and looks about the same size, despite being no bigger or more powerful than a Ford Focus.
If you don’t want the diesel there’s a 237bhp 2.0-litre petrol mated with a six-speed automatic gearbox and shift-paddles. Both engines have more than enough torque to make the Evoque as lively as you need an SUV to feel. Thanks to Land Rover’s well-proven electronic Terrain Response system, and to excellent approach and departure angles, it will do better than most — perhaps all — of its rivals off-road.
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