Range Rover Vogue Autobiography TDV8 2011 Review

Price guide (recommended price before statutory and delivery charges): $214,300
Options fitted to test car (not included in above price): Reclining rear seats $5420; Harman Kardon 19-speaker audio $3840; illuminated front treadstrips $700; black lacquer veneer trim $1000; metallic paint $1800
Crash rating: Four-stars (ANCAP)
Fuel: Diesel
Claimed fuel economy (L/100km): 9.4
CO2 emissions (g/km): 253
Also consider: Lexus LX570 Sports Luxury ($165,400); Audi Q7 TDI V8 ($129,300); Mercedes-Benz GL450 CDI ($169,800)

Clambering up into the top-shelf Range Rover Vogue Autobiography brings to mind Rolls Royce’s old strapline about not being able to afford it if you need to ask the price. Those who feel compelled to shriek ‘200 large for a paddock-basher?’ just don’t get the point.

Which is? In short, an upmarket all-in-one. A business lounge full of leather armchairs, flat-screen telly and top-notch hi-fi gear, perched atop a chassis of legendary ability offroad. It always was and will always be a remarkable piece of work.

And in the update to the V8 diesel model the local folk quietly introduced mid-2011, we have its most remarkable incarnation yet.

Flouting the current trend to downsizing, in 2011 Land Rover replaced the Vogue TDV8’s 3.6-litre oiler with a bigger one, displacing 4.4 litres. And it’s better in every way. Here’s the executive summary…

Power is up 15 per cent, to 230kW at 4000rpm. Torque is up nearly 10 per cent to 700Nm, available from a low 1500rpm up to 3000rpm. CO2 emissions are down 14 per cent to 253g/km.

Fuel consumption is down 18.5 per cent to 9.4L/100km combined – astonishing for a brick weighing more than 2.5 tonnes and standing more than 1.8 metres tall. At 11.6L/100km, its urban fuel consumption figure is around half those of its atmo and supercharged V8 petrol counterparts.

Over our week with it, we didn’t achieve those figures, but we came reasonably close, and without effort – early-mid nines on the highway, mid-tens in Sydney.

If it’s no F1 off the mark, there’s negligible lag and 0-100km/h in 7.8 seconds is quick enough for its staid target market. Dramatic improvements to the Rangie’s rolling acceleration see 80-120kph dropping from 6.3 to 5.1 seconds.

All while maintaining that Range Rover gruffness, muted enough to remind without intruding.

Much of this new virtue we can attribute to a transmission overhaul as profound as the engine’s. In place of the trusty ZF six-speed auto former owner Ford used so widely and so well, the TDV8 now comes with the German maker’s superlative eight-speed auto.

The ratios are closer than the six-speed, but also spread over a wider ambit, making it both smoother and better equipped to make the most of the engine.

Despite that proliferation of ratios, our weekend ride down the NSW south coast showed it remains free of irritating hunting through bendy, hilly roads. For that we can thank a sophisticated management system that monitors a combination of deceleration and acceleration behaviour, terrain and direction changes, turning the data into an ever-shifting series of anticipatory calculations. Not that it has to work too hard with such ready access to all those Newtons.

The ride is air-suspension jumping castle, with long-travel damping designed to insulate occupants from all that goes beneath it. While that makes for predictable compromises on the road, it’s no 1950s Cadillac. You sit up high, but the thing doesn’t feel overly top heavy. Lobbing it into a corner at speed, the self-levelling piles keep you nice and flat, albeit with little in the way of communication through the chassis or the steering. Despite the prodigious muscle, it’s obvious from the outset the Vogue is more for The Queen than McQueen.

Predictably, it made short work of the mildly rough unsealed surfaces to which we subjected it. But, despite the recent successes of the (Discovery-based) Sport and the (Freelander-based) Evoque, the Vogue is the vehicle on which Range Rover forged the formidable off-road reputation on which its brand rests.

Come time to stop, the brake pedal feel imparts plenty of reassurance from the beefy six-piston callipers and ventilated discs. A bit of back-road stress testing showed them to be more than a match for the drivetrain. It’s a mite surprising, though, to find that braking doesn’t extend to the cruise control in a vehicle of this league.

Upstairs, it still trumps its competitors for sheer indulgence. For that, we can thank sibling marque Jaguar, from which the Vogue inherits some of its more appealing technologies. On starting it up, a rotary-knob gear selector raises from the console, and a darkened, gaugeless instrument binnacle lights up with high-res TFT screen gauges. Just like an XJ Jag. It also shares that model’s prodigious use of steering wheel controls. Layers and layers of switchgear for audio, phone, trip computing and cruise and voice command. Thankfully it’s well laid-out and intuitive. As with all complex, high-end cars, patience pays off – we had it sussed well within our week.

Our test car was optioned up, but even without the Harman Kardon Logic 7 audio and the reclining rear seats, the Autobiography’s standard equipment list is want-for-nothing. Highlights include the eight-inch dual-view infotainment screen showing different things to driver and front passenger. The serrated screen surface allows the passenger to watch the digital/analogue TV or a DVD while the driver uses the sat-nav. It also comes with more cameras than Fashion Week – front, side and rear – as well as parking beepers on all corners.

Rear passengers get their own headrest-mounted DVD screens with infra-red headphones. Everyone gets heated seats, and the leather extends to the roof lining.

Take as read that the rest is there: 20-inch alloys, electrically adjustable everything, sensors to turn on and adjust wipers and lights, bi-xenons that look round corners, ambient lighting, heated steering wheel… The list is huge.

Complaints are few: the iPod connection packed up, or at least didn’t extend to iPhone compatibility. And while the seats are generous around the backrest, it would be nice if the cushions were a bit longer under the thigh.

On safety, the underside gets the full electronic treatment integrated with the air-suspension, while occupants share nine airbags: front, torso bags front and rear, curtains and a driver’s kneebag.

On the road, the Autobiography has its flaws. But they’re restricted to chassis and handling issues, most of which it shares with the S-Class Benz. The very presence of air suspension announces a skew to ride over handling, and that’s exactly what you get – a limo-like interior ambience.

What you also get now is a benchmark diesel drivetrain – smooth, swift and unbelievably economical.

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