There are hints to a theme started by the L322 Range Rover of 2002 inside the latest car: a large horizontal slab of dashboard is bisected with vertical elements in marine/yacht- inspired fashion.
It’s less obvious these days, partly owing to the 13.1in touchscreen floating in the middle of the dash, but the idea’s still the same: to give a classy, classical, slightly detached overview of what’s going on. You sit back and relax and the controls come to you. It’s not an immersive driver-focused cockpit like a sports car’s.
Which all suits rather nicely. The seats are large and flat but hugely adjustable and the driving position is tall, upright and dead straight, allied to a big steering wheel and pedals. Today’s gear selector is a wide, fat one not unlike a throttle on a powerboat. Next to it, appropriately, the terrain response control knob can be pushed discreetly into the transmission tunnel.
Then there are covers for the various cubbies and cupholders, to basically shut out non-essentials. It’s a bit of a shame, then, that the aluminium-effect panel they sit on is easily capable of reflecting light into your eyeballs and that there’s no control knob, save for the volume, to make infotainment controls easier.
The digital instrument pack is clear and the steering wheel buttons – a haptic panel rather than individual physical ones though they are – are not easily mis-pressed. Perceived material quality and fit and finish are up to the price, even though these days that means £100,000-plus.
Space is plentiful in the back and while a long-wheelbase Range Rover can be had with seven seats, most will come with five. Some can even be specified, if you talk to Special Vehicle Operations, with four and various electric tables or chillers.
Probably more useful is that the tailgate still splits as it opens – with the lower part providing a useful ledge on which to put picnics or sit and change boots or swing your legs, and cover provided by the top part. The rear seats split and fold electrically and the boot floor divider can even be set up as a backrest for reclining occupants.
Infotainment
Want to know what menus are selectable from Land Rover’s Pivi Pro system?
We will be close to running out of words for this section, but wheel information, navigation, accounts, seats, climate, eco information, valet mode, off-road information, low-traction launch, Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, media, cameras, vehicle dimensions, voice control, towing and trailers, cabin lighting, park assist, air quality, vents…
It’s all rather too much. Could the physical terrain response knob on the dash, which is likely to be used very little, be replaced with a rotary controller to navigate this stuff?
At a standstill, the functionality and usability of the interface and its menus are pretty clear, and the screen responds quickly to prods.
There is voice control with Amazon Alexa in some markets, and the navigation has shortcuts and location via What3Words. The Meridian stereo, meanwhile, sounds great.
