Land Rover's new baby

Posted by Paul Horrell at 12:45PM on Friday 14 December, 2007 4 Comments

Land Rover LRX Given the environmental stink surrounding big 4x4s at the moment, and the fact it's likely to get worse, it's no surprise Land Rover is thinking small.

To get the ball rolling, it'll use the Detroit show in January to unveil this show car called LRX. This paves the way for a production car in three years' time.

The LRX is based on the Freelander's underneath, which gives you an idea of its wheelbase (and also shows how feasible it is). But 250mm has been chopped off the overall length, making it sportier and lighter. Most of that has come off the tail.

Frankly, it looks a lot smaller than that. Visual tricks to shave apparent mass off the shape include a very tapered rear end, which makes the tail look extremely short when you look at it from the front.

The bonnet is a different shape from the Freelander's too. Where the Freelander's has raised outer portions, the LRX's drops at the sides. It's a small thing but it makes a big difference, making the LRX seem a lot less bluff.

Huge 20-inch wheels also make the body seem small. The LRX has a very shallow grille, a more steeply raked windscreen and a low roof. But not that low - in fact, much of the apparent lowness comes from the shallow glass made possible by the rising belt-line towards the back of the car. This is the first wedged Land Rover. A big departure.

But it's still a Land Rover. The surfaces have that straight-edged solid feel we're used to, and sitting inside, the seats are still pretty high, which combines with the low belt-line to give a commanding view out.

The LRX's designers, led by Land Rover's new chief of design Gerry McGovern and Jaguar-Land Rover advanced design chief Julian Thomson, say it could be production-car feasible without great changes.

McGovern wants to do a three-door in production. Hmmm, come on Gerry. We've seen dozens of 'off-road coupes' as show cars down the years, and none have made it because in the end, too few people would buy them. Well no, he concedes, a five-door is the most likely way, and says adding back doors wouldn't change the profile much.

Though we in Britain tend to forget it, Land Rover is a comparatively small player in the global compact 4x4 market, measured against the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V. What that means is to make a decent profit, Land Rover will need to charge a premium for the LRX.

That means smart cabin materials, clever technical solutions and a real up-market feel to the design. The LRX show car is an indication of the way the designers are thinking.

Inside, there are four seats, each the same as all the rest. They have a clever hinged mechanism that exposes a bike rack when they fold. McGovern is himself a keen pedaller and reckons most LR owners will go for this feature.

There's a new take on the familiar Range Rover tailgate, where the lower half drops to make a picnic table. Here it has a bottle cooler built in, and the hi-fi speakers can be angled backward. Ideal for pissing off the crowd at the Burleigh Horse Trials with your gangsta rap.

Sustainability is a key feature. Until the Detroit show itself, LR is being extremely tight-lipped about the powertrain (that'll be a diesel hybrid, then). But the designers are happy to talk about the cabin materials. The leather is thick and soft and doesn't use the usual toxic tanning materials. The headlining is felt, made of recycled plastic bottles. The floor is re-used wool, originally from a fully renewable sheep.

There's high-tech in here, too. All the vehicle settings, plus your music and communications and nav settings, are downloaded to an iPhone. Get into the car, dock it and it becomes the starter button and the head unit for many of the infotainment functions.

By day the dominant interior colour is a rich chocolate shade, but by night the whole place is bathed in coloured mood lighting. Change the terrain response and the lighting changes colour - green for the light-throttle economy mode, red for sports mode and blue for off-road.