Since its launch in 1989, Land-Rover’s popular Discovery has demonstrated that critical issues for motoring correspondents, such as handling and reliability, count for little when it comes to looks, comfort, usability and aspirations.
Actually, that’s a little hard on the dear old Disco of that era. The V8 petrol version performed well and, although the early 200Tdi sounded and felt somewhat agricultural, it did the job after early problems were sorted out. The 2-litre petrol version is best ignored. The wallowing, on-road body roll of those early Discos — a consequence of their design for off-road excellence — never bothered owners as much as it did the motoring press. People liked it for its space and versatility, its high roof and driving position and the fact that it was both rural tug and comfortable motorway cruiser. They also liked to feel that ownership made them like the people they liked to be like. Yet its appeal — if not its price — was soon almost as classless as that of the old Mini: the Duke of Edinburgh drives one and so did my former school-fellow, Michael Noye (the M25 road-rage murderer).
Reliability has long been a problem with some Land-Rover products, particularly the overheating of the Freelander’s K series petrol engine and the electronic complexity of the 1990s Range Rover. It was the result partly of decades of low investment in plant and processes, partly of workforce attitudes. Too many owners of leaky Defenders were treated as if that was what they should expect — it wasn’t a proper Land-Rover without a leak. Solihull got away with that in the 1950s and 1960s (though my 1966 Series 11A is mystifyingly leak-free), but there’s been no excuse since. Things improved under BMW ownership and are improving still more under Ford.
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