The turn of the year didn’t merely lead us into the Year of the Dragon, but also the year of the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque. Halewood’s small softroader won a boodle of awards: Autoweek’s Best of the Best, Top Gear magazine’s and Jeremy Clarkson’s choice for Car of the Year, Motor Trend magazine’s SUV of the Year and the North American Truck of the Year. For starters. Consumer Reports, however, isn’t as swayed, saying that the new BMW X3 “handily outpointed its European rival” in a head-to-head between the two compact luxury crossovers.
We expect there’s an Evoque out there with a sore backside because CR did not spare the rod, saying the Evoque scored near the bottom of its category because of “a cramped cabin, stiff ride, artificial-feeling steering and troubling emergency handling.” On top of that, its “rear view is poor,” its “cargo area is small” and its interior is “noisy” albeit “well finished,” and was outdone by the X3′s “lavish interior.” The baby Land Rover finished so far in the hole that CR couldn’t give the vehicle its coveted Recommend rating.
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The editors from Autoweek have lined up their notes and named their 2011 Best of the Best. The 2012 Audi A7 and Land Rover Range Rover Evoque took the top honors, with editor Wes Raynal saying that the Audi is a vehicle with “few peers” thanks its integration of sedan styling and hatchback functionality. The Evoque, meanwhile, won over the hearts and minds of those at Autoweek thanks to its Land Rover roots and excellent ride refinement. The publication says the Evoque redefines the brand.
Autoweek isn’t alone in its picks. As you may recall, the editors at our sister site, AOL Autos, chose both the A7 and the Evoque for the website’s first-ever car of the year awards, Motor Trend named the Evoque its SUV of the Year, and we’re rather fond of them both, as well.
In order to qualify for the Autoweek Best of the Best list, a vehicle had to be completely or substantially new for 2011. Click past the jump for the full press release. Read More »
The Land Rover Evoque is headed to participate in the next running of the Dakar Rally with a few necessary modifications. The British Excite Rally Raid Team is planning to take to the sands of South America with three cars shelled in the body of an Evoque. Under the hood, however, the T3 racers will make use of BMW straight-six power. The 3.0-liter turbo-diesel engine is good for 275 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque with a ZF six-speed gearbox handling the shifting duties.
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With the long-serving Defender not… well, long for this world, Land Rover is gearing up for its eventual replacement – targeted to launch in 2015 – and we just got our first glimpse of it on the show floor here in Frankfurt. Or glimpses, we should say, as JLR surprised us with the debut not only of the concept we were expecting, but a pair of them.
In one corner, the white-roofed silver DC100 three-door wagon we’d been shown (at least, in part) a couple of weeks ago. In the other, the DC100 Sport, an open-air version decked out in yellow-orange. Both preview the next generation of the iconic, go-anywhere truck of choice for expeditionary teams worldwide, and pack such innovations as an off-road terrain scanning device to detect potential obstacles and – get this – a sonar depth-sounder for fording through rivers. Plus, you know, a whole lot more style than the model it envisions succeeding.
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Few vehicles have been on (or off) the road as long as the Land Rover Defender. It’s one of those few true icons of the automobile, and replacing it will be no easy task. But that’s precisely what Land Rover is gearing up to do.
Capable as the outgoing Defender is, you see, it hardly teeters on the cutting edge of the industry. Which is why JLR is committing to its replacement in 2015. And to give us an idea of what we might expect, the company is preparing to unveil this concept car at the Frankfurt Motor Show next month. Read More »
With some of the most ferocious high-speed off-road vehicles under its belt, Bowler is no stranger to conquering new territory. But its latest project is something entirely different for the British rally-raid racing firm.
The company was recently purchased by Coventry Prototype Panels (CPP), the same outfit that gobbled up the Spyker sportscar company when all of the company’s cash was tied up in Saab – and it’s also the same company that’s forming a partnership with Zagato. They recently hired Steve Haywood as the brand’s managing director, and the ex-Land Rover chief engineer is now hard at work taking Bowler to a place it’s never been before: the street.
Historically, Bowler’s vehicles have start out with Range Rover mechanicals, which were then modified extensively for Dakar-class rally raid competition. But Haywood has joined the firm to bring the company’s first street-legal, commercially available product (previously known as the Nemesis) to market.
While specifications are a long way off from being finalized, Autocar reports that Haywood and Bowler figure on demand for about 150 to 200 units – ten times more than the competition-spec vehicles it currently products – at a price of around £150,000. At nearly $250,000, that’s twice the price of even the top-spec factory Range Rover. That’s a lot of cash, but we can think of a few places in the world where they’ve got the cash and appetite for such extravagance.
[Source:Autoblog]
Land Rover is no stranger to the topless utility vehicles. In fact, it was one of the originators, and still offers the Defender as an open-air prospect. But that’s a hard-core off-roader. The Evoque, in this and many other ways, charts new territory for the brand.
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