Hype and reality rarely match. Yet with the Range Rover Evoque, Tata Motors’ Land Rover unit has a vehicle that more than fulfils expectation. This expectation has been built up ever since we saw the original concept – then badged Land Rover – at the Detroit motor show in January 2008 [you can see it at the Heritage Motor Centre museum in Warwickshire – ed].
Expectation has heightened in recent weeks with countless column inches of road tests and comparative tests gushing praise in the mainstream motoring media.
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That this praise is justified became evident within a few miles of leaving RAF Valley on Anglesey, the small island off the north coast of Wales. We were directed through a farmyard and onto hillside where the ‘baby’ Range Rover proved itself just as capable on the rough stuff as its bigger siblings.
“We couldn’t build a Range Rover that didn’t have full off-road capability,” said LR UK managing director Colin Green.
So the 36-hour launch, centred around Liverpool, and including a visit to the former Ford Halewood factory where the Evoque is built on the same line as the Freelander, involved plenty of off roading, It even had a remarkable – buttock clenching even – drive through a two mile disused railway tunnel under the heart of Liverpool. We emerged in bright sunshine by the docks, much to the surprise and delight of countless tourists. The Evoque will prove something of a tourist attraction too with the six-week launch bringing 700 journalists from 50 countries to north Wales and Liverpool. Hardly surprising that the city council and local businesses have welcomed the decision to launch the car locally.
Halewood which employs 3,000, reaches full production this week and will build three Evoques to each Freelander. The Evoque will become the company’s best seller, said Green, and there are more than 18,000 orders (some 5,500 from the UK) on the books before any customer has even driven one.
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By GlobalDataOf those, only about one in four is from an existing Land Rover owner, most buying the Evoque as a second car. The rest will be new to the brand. Green noted that there was little evidence yet of existing owners switching from the Freelander or Discovery into the Evoque so he expects all sales to be incremental.
Buyers should be rather pleased with what they find. On road, the crossover handles and rides more like a well sorted saloon car – the nimbleness of a Ford Focus comes to mind – while off road it coped with axle twisting ruts, deep water and gravity defying ascents and descents with equal confidence.
The Evoque will arrive in UK showrooms from early September. Prices range from GBP27,955 (about the same as an Audi Q5 and less than a BMW X3) to GBP44,320.
