Range Rover L405 review: eschews sportiness for outright luxury

As we've been looking at the successive generations of Range Rover (see links below), I keep circling back to the way it makes you feel so good because you know it can take any challenge in its stride. But of course there's an elephant in the room. A challenge it declines to take on.

During the L405's conception, it was increasingly obvious the world's sports-car makers were eyeing the money of rich 4x4 buyers. Their idea was to build a thing that would, if anyone asked, torture its tyres round a track, even if that meant quietly parking some of the other qualities of a luxo-SUV. Porsche, Mercedes-AMG and BMW M were in there; Maserati, Lamborghini and Aston Martin had signalled their intentions. These were the elephants on the circuit.

Jaguar Land Rover had other vehicles for that job – the fastest versions of the Range Rover Sport and F-Pace. The L405 Range Rover went the other way. Too much sportiness poleaxes a 4x4's abilities in the two dimensions that make a Range Rover so distinctive: on-road comfort and off-road traction.

The L405 was all-British in conception, design and manufacture. It had an all-aluminium monocoque, but it was big so still weighed two and a half tonnes. It took the Range Rover proposition to a new altitude, more imperious in luxury and design.

It's even more of a cocoon than the L322. Softer, quieter, smoother. More isolating to drive. Which you might care for, might not. Really, modern range Rovers are one of your final stops before a Rolls-Royce Ghost.

Still, for something so big and especially something so tall, it keeps remarkable control of itself. The steering is perfectly weighted and progressive, so you can place it inch-accurately without conscious effort, even if it's in no way tactile or involving.

It has a powered anti-roll system – Range Rover calls it Dynamic Response – so it manages to be super-supple on the straights, yet in a corner stays as upright as a judge. It even has a dynamic mode, as well as comfort, that reconfigures the powertrain and dampers to give a perkier edge, and quash incipient floatiness. You can hustle it along, but it's definitely not trying to be one of those 'sports' 4x4s.

This particular one, the very last off the line, has JLR's own 5.0-litre supercharged engine. It's a 5.4-second 0-62mph stately home. You don't feel moved to smash the pedal to the floor and make a fuss. It's Range Rover luxury again, another of those capabilities the vehicle has but you seldom use. It's just nice, really nice, to know it's there.

This L405 doesn't feel dated and certainly doesn't look it. That's a mark of its apartness really. All Range Rovers look like Range Rovers, but in this one Gerry McGovern's design team came up with a formula that's as distinctive as its beguiling character.

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