Land Rover Discovery review

The Discovery 5 is the biggest, most luxurious, most off-road handy Land Rover money can buy. It’s a true automotive Swiss Army knife, capable of taking seven full-grown humans further up a mountain, down a river or straight to The Savoy than pretty much anything.

The current generation first saw the light of day in 2017, and it’s fair to say the Disco’s featureless sides and lopsided rear end (which remains jarring today) have made what was once a design classic a real Marmite car.

A mild facelift a couple of years later brought new headlights, new bumpers, a fresh set of engines and much-needed new infotainment inside, but not much else. Land Rover remains confident the way this car looks won’t put anyone off before they’ve climbed aboard and sampled its superpowers.

It's certainly a far cry from previous Discos...

Compared to the old Disco 3 (and the Disco 4, which was really just a mild facelift), the fifth-gen car is a very different animal. No longer does a unibody chassis live on a separate frame, resulting in an obese kerbweight and predictably agricultural dynamics. The Discovery now calls an all-aluminium platform home.

The foundations are shared with the full-fat Rangie, though we’re told the materials used mean the kerbweight is down almost half a tonne. That said, this is still a machine that crushes small hills rather than climb them, so don’t expect Porsche-spec cornering prowess.

Though the Disco 5 is a mite narrower than the older version, it feels enormous from way up in the captain’s chair. Intimidatingly so. Land Rover is at pains to point out it considers the Disco a size up from the likes of the Volvo XC90 and Audi Q7, and the rearmost seats can cater to humans no longer wearing nappies. But, like the equally enormous Mercedes GLS, you’re going to need a very generous parking space. Wiltshire ought to do nicely.

What flavour engines does it come with?

Where formerly the Discovery was available with a choice of four cylinder (D250 diesel and P300 petrol) and six cylinder (D300 diesel and P360 petrol) options, at time of writing it’s available with just one diesel straight six.

Badged D350 and introduced as part of the Discovery’s 35th anniversary celebrations, it’s a 3.0-litre six cylinder with mild hybrid assistance. Total output is 345bhp and 516lb ft, and it’ll see off the zero to 60mph sprint in 5.9 seconds. Meanwhile claimed economy is around the mid-thirties.

As ever it’s allied to an eight-speed automatic as standard, with four-wheel drive (duh), and Land Rover’s confident claims the Disco can out climb, out wade and out tow any rival under the sun. Handy if you bring oil tankers into port for a living.

Will I need to remortgage my house to afford one?

Well, the £62,690 asking price is a lot more expensive than you used to pay for a Disco, but if you’re after a motor that really can do it all…

Want even more car than this? Then you’re wading into Range Rover territory. Question is, why would you possibly want ‘more car’ than a Disco?

On the one hand, the Discovery is now so richly appointed inside, so deeply talented off-road and so downright massive it feels churlish to compare it to the likes of the Volvo XC90, Audi Q7 and BMW X5.

There’s so much Range Rover-ness about the Disco now, and it’s so massive and versatile, it feels like it belongs in its own subsection, where only truly authentic mud-pluggers, rather than lifestyle 4x4s, dare to tread. That said, be sure you really need the Disco’s deep reserves of off-piste talent and sheer dimensions before shunning those wieldier and more efficient rivals.

If your lifestyle demands such a roundly capable and roomy family car, there’s pretty much nothing else on Earth that’ll do so much, so well, as this extraordinary machine. It’s one of the wonders of the car world, truthfully. You probably don’t need one, but precisely because of that, you’re more likely to want a Discovery.