Range Rover Velar

Driving a brand new car for the first time is a bit like going on a first date. There’s that undercurrent of unfamiliarity as you try and figure each other out and try to find what makes each other tick. But once you find that common ground, that’s when sparks fly.

I turned up to Archibald and Shorter on a blisteringly hot day and, I have to admit, I was a tad nervous. Nestled right between the Range Rover Evoque and the Range Rover Sport, the youngest Range Rover sibling – the Range Rover Velar – is designed to bridge the gap between the two. Larger than the Evoque but smaller than the Sport, Land Rover has approached the Velar with an emphasis on aesthetics and technology, without compromising any of the functional aspects befitting of the Range Rover moniker.

On first sight, the 2018 Range Rover Velar had me taken aback. Its dazzling design and sleek exterior had me enamoured (did someone say deployable handles?). Sitting in the driver’s seat, the sci-fi, futurist geek in me resonated with the meticulously streamlined, minimalist interior. Stripped back and reductionist.

Less is more.

Already off to a good start.

With the destination set for Piha to test the Velar out on those winding, west Auckland roads, off I went.

Taking the motorway and heading west, you can definitely feel the power when you put your foot down. Along the way, three different drivers turned their heads to give the Velar a cheeky look. There’s a certain feeling you get when you sit behind the wheel of a brand new ride, having other patrons on the road check out the Velar was just affirmation of that! Venturing into the native bush and away from the main city, the Velar handled tight corners as if it had mastered the track a thousand times over. The masterfully crafted suspension letting the Velar ride the ebbs and flows of the road much like the skilled surfers Piha is known for.

Just coast and enjoy the ride.

Now, normally I find SUVs to be a fairly innocuous, formulaic style of car – they’re big, they’re meant to go off-road, rinse, repeat.
The Velar, however, isn’t your average SUV.

Sure, it’s an SUV by type, but Land Rover’s approach and design philosophy behind the Velar give it that special twist. The interior, exterior and the way the it performed on the road left me truly impressed.

Interior

The phrase ‘less is more’ is a tad cliché, but it’s a fantastic approach to restore order to the inherent extravagant properties of what SUVs are. Upon first glance, SUVs command your attention based solely on their sheer size. Range Rover’s approach internally (and externally) with the Velar is a beautifully clean, stripped-back aesthetic – refreshing and different.
There’s a distinct lack of switches and buttons. Range Rover wants the space to speak for itself. Sizeable cabin space and immaculate leather in clean white made me feel a bit like I was captaining the Millennium Falcon or the Starship Enterprise – and that’s before even approaching the two strikingly slick touchscreens.

The Touch Pro Duo touch screen is essentially what KITT is to Knight Rider – the brain behind the beast, with you firmly in control of the reins. I was impressed with the interactivity of the interface. You swipe between menus and tap for options just like any standard iPad or tablet.

The two touch screens serve different purposes. The upper screen covers three main categories – navigation, media and phone. The lower screen is in charge of climate control and terrain response.

4G connectivity and built-in Wi-Fi means that family road trips get a whole lot easier, especially in this era of Netflix and where kids need to stay amused with the flashing lights and sounds of apps.

Oh yeah – there are massage seats too.

My only gripe with the touch screen is that the total driving experience is built upon the muscle memory of pressing familiar buttons and turning dials; all the tapping and swiping means that wiping down smudge marks is inevitable. It’ll take some getting used to, and no doubt you will be getting acquainted with the driver’s manual to fully understand all the mod cons packed into the Velar, but the positives of its extensive tech features far outweigh any negatives.

If you’re looking to head out on any road trips with the family any time soon and need to cram in plenty of luggage and gear, the Velar boasts an impressive 673 litres of load space with the seats upright – perfect for when you’re looking to escape the big smoke.

Exterior

Whenever you streamline and reduce something to its essence, it’s usually a good move.

The Velar is an eye-popping vehicle, the exterior a culmination of carefully accounted for detailing that builds up to a masterful collective whole. It’s a mid-sized SUV, lower and longer than the Evoque and Sport Range Rovers. Just on proportion alone, it’s wonderfully formed – the antithesis to other clunky SUVs that make you feel claustrophobic in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Well-designed lines from the middle taper out to the back of the Velar, like adding a tight belt to a dress – accentuate form and fit in all the right places.

The super-slim Matrix LED headlights come across almost like a playful squint with the beaming glimmer from the LEDs a teaser of all the tech and innovation packed into the Velar. If you haven’t picked up already, I’m a sucker for sci-fi and futuristic detail. And the Velar delivers in that department.

The flush deployable door handles are something straight out of a comic book, all that’s lacking is that familiar “woosh” sound from Star Trek. The burnished copper detailing adorns the front grille, front bumper blades and fender vents, doing a fantastic job in rounding it out. The Velar’s light and firm aluminium body structure is supremely aerodynamic, serving to create better performance and agility on the open road. Wheel-wise, the towering 22-inch alloys are understatedly elegant and pair perfectly with the Velar’s proportions. If that wasn’t enough, the Velar comes in 12 different colours – plenty of options to fit your tastes.

The journey out to Piha was a perfect pick, the winding roads towards the beach providing a fantastic track to test out the Velar’s capabilities.

A common symptom for many SUVs on the market is the feeling of heaviness, where you’re really struggling to push the car to get some grunt out of it.

Performance

The Velar is quick off the mark, however, and while it won’t be in the same sentence of a super-charged coupé, it is a really engaging and dynamic drive. The 3.0 litre V6 diesel model, the D300, has tremendous efficiency with a powerful 300PS and impressive maximum torque of 700Nm. The Velar packs plenty of grunt too, going 0-100km/h in 6.5 seconds with a max speed of 241km/h. You can definitely feel the power behind it when you put your foot down.

For those of you who seek full control, every Velar comes with reactive 8-speed automatic transmission paddleshifts. It coasts around corners no sweat, manoeuvring and gliding around tight bends in the Velar is a total delight. Torque vectoring comes into play here to keep the Velar firm and sure-footed, and if things get a bit precarious out there, you can take solace in the dynamic stability control and roll stability control.

On the outside it’s an attention-grabbing showstopper. On the inside it’s sleek, elegant and future-forward – impressive every time you sit in. Form and function. Style and substance. The juggling between those two important tenets in product design is essential.

The Velar’s perfect balance of both, and its minimalist, future-forward approach hooked me in from the start. Experiencing it first-hand with a trip to Piha left me a fan. Less is more. The Range Rover Velar is the perfect embodiment of that.