Take the Queen
For a Ride in a Land Rover Discovery II
By Ben Miller
Contributing Editor
If I planned to embark on a cross-country
adventure trip of Kenya, I'd want to drive something made by Land
Rover. After all, if it's good enough for the queen of England,
it's good enough for me.
Land Rovers are also the vehicle of choice of the Prince of Wales
and the Duke of Edinburgh. But, alas, no trip to Africa is planned
in the near future.
Still, a Land Rover is not too shabby a vehicle to travel around
the wilds of the Nebraska Panhandle.
Land Rover makes three vehicles, including the Range Rover 4.0
SE (starting at $59,000 - ouch!), the Range Rover 4.6 HSE (starting
at $67,300 - a bigger ouch!) and the more affordable
Discovery II (compared with the first two, a bargain
beginning at $34,150). If you're going to rough it, you might as
well do it in style in a Land Rover Discovery II.
The Discovery II is the firm's biggest selling model (since it costs more than
$20,000 less than the next cheapest model, that's not a big shock.)
Land Rover brought the word upscale to the sport utility
vehicle market. The British firm (now owned by BMW) began sending
over its luxurious products 13 years ago and began an SUV who-can-outdo-the-next-guy
battle.
Now Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, and even BMW have their own luxurious
SUV models in the expensive shootout started by Land Rover.
At a price (with options) exceeding $40,000, it's doubtful whether
many Discovery II models are breaking trails in the mountains
of Colorado or heading to remote fishing spots accessible by only
rocky roads. But the Discovery II does look nice in the country
club parking lot and the valet attendant probably will expect
a bigger tip from you than the guy driving the '91 Jeep Cherokee.
What do you get for your $34,150? You don't get leather seats,
for one. Those are an additional $1,950, but that includes Alcantara
accents, whatever those are. You also get a ride that sits up
substantially higher than a traditional sport utility vehicle.
You're above all the common people driving their Explorers and
Blazers.
You get a lot of power in the Discovery II, which is powered by
a 4.0-liter V8 engine that produces 188 horsepower, but more importantly,
Land Rover notes, also produces 250 pound-feet of torque at 2,600
rpm. That's great if you need the low-end grunt to get out of
a quicksand pit near Nairobi. Gas mileage for the Discovery II
is rated at 13 miles per gallon in the city and 17 on the highway.
The Discovery II is always in four-wheel drive; there are no levers
to pull or buttons to push. An automatic transmission is standard,
as is a Hill Descent Control button, which slows the Discovery
II down a bit easier coming down a Himalayan mountain peak.
If you opt to drive your Discovery II hard in the corners, you
might want to order the performance package ($2,900),
which includes an Active Cornering Enhancement system.
The system, Land Rover says, reduces the Discovery II's movement
during cornering.
The package also includes speed-rated tires (or tyres,
as the British say in the owner's manual) and 18-inch alloy wheels.
Another option that will come in useful on cold Panhandle mornings
is the cold climate package ($500) that includes heated
front seats and a heated front windshield (or windscreen,
as the Brits say).
Inside, you're surrounded by luxury, including power everything,
cruise control, exterior thermometer, and split fold-down rear
seat.
At a price of $40,750, a test Discovery II had all of the above
options, and a CD player ($625). But at that price, a sport utility
vehicle should be easy to get in and out of, without a tall person's
legs bumping into the steering wheel, as was the case with the
Discovery II.
And some people might be put off by the Discovery II's engine
noise, which can get pretty loud under hard acceleration.
But if the Discovery II and other Land Rover products are good
enough for the queen of England and all of those other Brit royalty,
then by jove, they're good enough for the colonists.
