I'm not saying they don't have a great heritage of building off road vehicles, but that picture is a 20 year old Discovery, not a new Range Rover. Granted new RR's do have a pretty trick electronic 4wd system and adjustable air suspension, the hardware is there under the skin, but then the factory gimps them with on-road performance 22" low profile tire package.

My point is "A new Range Rover is great off road" is all marketing hype. They want the customer to recall a picture like the one you posted, even though the trucks aren't equipped to do that sort of thing out of the box and nobody uses them that way. At least not until they're down to their 3rd or 4th owner who bought it for $2000 to bash around in the woods.

 

I was decently impressed with it's interior at NAIAS. However, the doors were hard plastic from the halfway point down and a flap of the carpet on the front passenger side had peeled off (and this was 30 minutes after the show had opened to the public). I suppose it's still better than the Escalade which is all Ford needed to do to make sales.

 

 

 

I saw one of these on the road the other day and all I thought was "holy crap this this is huge".

Was not expecting it to be that big.

 

That's unfortunate. I hope they got it slapped back on quickly and permanently.

 

100% completely agree. Those Discos have solid axles. Proper locking diffs. Excellent angles of approach and depart.

 

The Discovery is not the only Land Rover product to have locking differentials. They are also found on the Range Rover Velar and some other versions.

http://robbreport.com/motors/cars/la...velar-2770781/

 

Small it ain't. The Navigator has always been done on the F-150/Expedition chassis. And, if course, a few years ago, they introduced a long-wheelbase version to compete with the Escalade ESV.

 

 

 

 

For off-roading, in general, the higher-profile, the better. Gives more protection for the alloy wheels over rocks.

 

 

Navigator and Escalade, OK...I agree they generally aren't designed for the boonies (and rarely get driven there). But the RR (and, to a lesser extent, the LX) is like the Trail-Rated badge for Jeeps...to simply BE a Land-Rover product, or a Toyota Land Cruiser/Lexus LX, the vehicle HAS to, by company standards, be capable of a certain amount of off-road capability, whether owners choose to actually use that capability or not (many, of course, don't).

Now, of course, there is the added question if owners want to pay 90-100K (or more) for vehicles like this and then take them, with those nice paint jobs, plush interiors, and nice trim out in conditions which would scratch them up (SCRATCH-OUT is good stuff, but can only do so much LOL) and get them filthy. There is also the fact, of course, that many insurance policies won't cover off-road damage, even if the vehicle is capable of it. But those issues are probably off-topic here, and best left for another thread.