Range Rover Velar 2018 Review - Long-term Test #3

Is it possible to become infatuated with a car? I believe it is.

To paraphrase one-time Australian PM and founder of the Liberal Party Robert Menzies as he declared his undying devotion to Her Royal Majesty the Queen; “I did but see it in a photo laying by, but I will love it until the day I die.”

From the moment I spotted the first teaser photographs of the then-upcoming addition to the Land Rover lineup, destined to fit between the mid-size Range Rover Evoque and the large-size Range Rover Sport, I wanted to see it in the flesh. I was keen to find out if it looked as arrestingly beautiful in real-life as it did in carefully-lit, carefully-contrived professional photographs.

Let it be said, on setting eyes on the Range Rover Velar for the first time, my admiration didn’t die, not one little bit.

Proclaimed in March this year at the New York motor show as the most beautiful car on Earth, the Range Rover Velar takes SUV design principles, presses the re-set button and refines everything to the utmost degree. I reckon it makes just about every other SUV/4WDs look clumsy and contrived.

Of course none of this is any guarantee that the Range Rover Velar will deliver fully on its aesthetic promise. There have been plenty of examples of that in the past, when wonderfully-contrived styling actually hides something less attractive.

One local example is the Holden Calibra sports coupe of the early 1990s that never really lived up to its universally-admired looks.

After spending a long-anticipated week in the latest Range Rover family member, in R-Dynamic HSE guise, I can’t say I’m in any way disappointed.

This thing has been thoroughly tuned, from the finest detail, to bring not just its beauty, but its functionality up to the most harmonic pitch. The pop-out door handles fall just short of being indulgently tricky by adding to the Velar’s smooth, minimalist shapes. And the applied graphic features such as the dummy venting at the sides, near the base of the

A-Pillars and the twin bonnet epaulettes featured on R-Dynamic versions are more like fine jewellery than decorative excesses.

And how could you not admire a minimalist interior that largely dispenses with buttons and protuberances in favour of clean, uncluttered and stylish spaces?

We come to an interesting point here: If I had any beefs with the Range Rover Velar, this is where they come home to roost.

Given that one tends to spend a lot more time immersed inside a car than admiring its external charms, there’s plenty to be said for visually-pleasing dashboards and carefully-integrated functional controls.

But I question the functionality of a driver-vehicle interface that relies heavily on touchscreens and other touch-sensitive surfaces.

In the interests of complicating what was once a simple, easy action such as adjusting the heating/cooling, or even tuning the radio, it has all devolved into an attention-diverting business where you must first unravel the steps required to perform the simple act you had planned, then attempt to guide your hand to the finite spot on the screen where it is supposed to land. Doing that, even in a vehicle as divinely smooth-riding as the air-suspended Velar, is non-ergonomic, distracting and potentially dangerous.

And it’s not just the functionality: Particularly when all the touch-surfaces are gloss-black, there’s also the patina of ugly, disfiguring fingerprints that quickly builds up and would be a godsend to any forensic investigation.

The Range Rover Velar, unfortunately, is let down significantly here. Even when the finger hits the correct point on the instrument panel, there’s often a delay before any result is produced. I regularly found myself failing to activate the sat-nav as I repeatedly stabbed unsuccessfully at the display screen. And the distance-setting steering wheel controls for the adaptive cruise required not just one, but two touches before the desired result was achieved. Why?

There’s a lot more of course, and no doubt things would get better with familiarity, but surely car-makers keen to improve the dialogue between driver and machine should be aiming at easily-understood simplicity than unwarranted complication.
Once experienced, not forgotten

The Velar’s V6 diesel option, the 221kW/700Nm twin-turbo 3.0-litre, is nicely at home in the Velar – which despite its “aluminium intensive” construction sits at a heavy-ish for class tare weight of just below two tonnes (1959kg) – and provides a satisfying surge of smooth power. The eight-speed ZF auto is effective here too, although with all that torque, produced at a low 1500rpm, the surfeit of ratios hardly seems necessary.

I found the diesel V6 to be commendably unobtrusive when up and running. Only when fired up from cold in a confined space could you hear the throbbing, typically-diesel clatter.

And the Velar’s ride, suspended as it is on air springs with adaptive shock absorbers, is outstanding for the way it soaks up the bumps. Set in comfort mode, the Velar is simply unfazed by just about anything, from corrugated gravel to wavering bitumen. And, with quick steering (2.5 turns from lock to lock) it feels like something much smaller and lighter. The turning circle, at 11.6m, is on par with its contemporaries.

As for stretching space, the Velar, which rides on a shorter wheelbase than the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Discovery, yields plenty of legroom room in both front and back and, with a quoted body width exceeding 2.0m, there’s plenty of shoulder room too. The parchment-coloured leather trim on the long-term Velar’s seats naturally grubs up quickly, but can be easily brought back to new.

Two downsides have shown up during the Velar’s extended time on our press-test fleet: Although fuel consumption in my case didn’t come close to the official 6.4L/100km (I averaged around 8.3L/100km over a week of mixed city/country driving) it was still better, due to different driving circumstances, than managed so far by other people in our team.

The 66-litre fuel tank seems small for such a big, powerful vehicle too, although the Range Rover Velar’s competitors – Mercedes-Benz GLC, Audi Q5 and BMW X3 – are really no better. Only the Porsche Macan’s 75-litre tank does the job properly.

In the end though, it was the Range Rover Velar’s outstanding looks that really won me – and practically everyone else who spotted it on the road – over.

Maybe I’m stretching things a bit here, but I think it even looks good dirty.

How much does a 2018 Land Rover Range Rover Velar R-Dynamic HSE D300 cost?
Price: $135,150 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo-diesel
Output: 221kW/700Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 6.4L/100km (ADR Combined) / 8.3L/100km (as tested)
CO2: 167g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety Rating: Five-star ANCAP