News : Land Rover Discovery 5 breaks cover in Paris

Keith Adams

HyperFocal: 0

The Land Rover Discovery 5 has been launched following a rather lengthy teaser campaign. It’s clearly lighter and more efficient than the outgoing model, which has been doing fine service since 2005, but the big news is that its styling is more derivative of Land Rover’s new look, effectively looking like a scaled-up Discovery Sport.

But that is to underplay the huge advances in technology this car has made. It’s now based around JLR’s Ingenium engine, which means the entry-level version boasts a CO2 output of 171g/km by means of this and an overall weight reduction of 480kg. It gives a claimed 43.5mpg, and a 0-60mph time of 8.0 seconds.

The TDV6 diesel doesn’t do badly with 189g/km of CO2, but we rather like the sound of the 3.0-litre supercharged petrol V6, which pushes out 355bhp – it’s a shame so few people in the UK will buy it.

06.07.2016 V8

This move to a more lightweight Discovery is underpinned by the car’s new riveted and bonded aluminium monocoque, which is a technology shared across the JLR range. As before, the Discovery 5 will seat seven people, and the seats are power-operated and can be remotely configured in a variety of positions – if that’s your thing.

It’s a bigger overall car, with its length going up to 4970mm, which explains how it can run to three forward-facing rows of full-sized seats. As before, there’s self-levelling air suspension, but it’s now an all-independent set-up that can be lowered by as much as 40mm.

As before, it’s available as a S, SE, HSE and HSE Luxury, and prices have been announced at £43,495-£65,695, plus a huge options list. The Discovery 5 is due to go on sale in the Spring of 2017, with the first 600, rather cleverly, being sold as ‘First Edition’ models. These are the future classics…

discovery-5-2

Gallery

Keith Adams

62 Comments

  1. “effectively looking like a scaled-up Discovery Sport”. Totally. Did they just ‘Xerox’ the Sport design and scale it up by 1:1.1 times? Very poor effort. The boxy Disco 3 was a beast, but a distinctive one.

  2. That rear end is a bit of a mess. Still, it will no doubt sell like hot cakes and be another big success for Land-Rover.

      • The first gallery picture (emerging from the sea) looks like it has been photoshopped. Would expect to see reflections of the water surface on the side of the car.

        Reminds me of those faked North Korean naval exercise photos! Not cool.

  3. I really like it. I was not a fan of the current Range Rover’s cab-backward look but it works here, and it looks bang up-to-date. The proportions are very different from the Sport’s as a result, with the 5 appearing more premium. The asymmetric rear is a nice feature that harks back to earlier models; it’ll easily grow on people (unlike the taillights of the Mitsubishi Pajero Sport, for instance). Well done, Land Rover—and I can’t wait to see any sketches, renderings and clays appear on AROnline in time!

  4. I don’t like it for the same reasons I don’t like the sport. They seem to have lost their “landroverness” and just look like any other blobby boring 4×4.

  5. Hideous outside, and worse still, even more hideous inside . However, it seems that you can fool people into renting anything these days

  6. A weight reduction of 480kg. Half a tonne!

    So in summary… much lighter, more luxurious, presumably better performance figures, and priced similar to the outgoing model (which also started in the low 40s before options).

    What’s not to like? This should fly out of the showrooms.

    • That figure is terribly misleading; comparing a new, entry level 2.0 litre 4 with the current minimum of a 3.0 V6 will give you that weight saving. But, comparing V6 to V6, the difference drops to < 200 Kg. I've yet to see LR make that fact clear.

    • Also, competitive and compatible pricing has been made possible by comparing outgoing, leather trimmed, 3.0 V6 powered D4’s, with 2.0 litre, 4 cylinder, cloth trimmed D5’s.

  7. I think it is not a complete design like the Disco Sport. The rear overhang makes it look heavy and a question over that clearance if you want to use it off road. Also why if the number plate in a weird looking off centre droop – looks odd! However it will probably fly as its a LR, just a shame they could not have been more mean and distinctive in the styling.

      • That’s where, a month before the unveiling someone had the idea to check if a UK number plate would fit. It didn’t. Cue panic and last minute “styling” decision.. Let’s cut half the section deeper so it’ll fit.
        Look carefully, the numberplate fits so perfectly you’d think someone used it as a stencil..

        • The Disco has to accommodate all Euro style plates, not just UK, be they in rectangle or square format.

          It also has to accommodate US sized plates – used mostly in North, Central and South America, Australian plates which are a cross between US and old Italian style front plates, Japanese plates which are slightly larger than US style plates etc.

          A lot of times this either leads to large rear numberplate recesses, see the Rover 75 for example, or different bootlids for different markets – the likes of Merc and VW sell a Europlate sized recess bootlid in Europe, but in the US the plate recess is narrower and taller. (Especially noticable in US dramas where the action “occurs” in Europe but the fake rear plates have to be stuck onto the rear bumper as they’re filming in California with local cars…)

          In fact the plate on this Disco is a taller S-type/R75 style custom sized plate, which was why it looks like a template, a standard UK/Euro plate would look a bit vertically shorter.

          The off-centre plate placement can’t be any worse than the OCD triggering rear plate on that huge Hyundai SUV thing with about a dozen badges on it(Hyundai, (H), Santa Fe, CRDi, 7-Seat, 4WD – all in different fonts like a Halfords sale on chrome letters), where they have to offset the plate slightly because of a door handle!!

  8. I think the interior is beautiful! Yes, loads of “look at me” gadgets, but given that those are there because it’s an expensive car, the look is very clean, elegant and stylish.

  9. It will sell well because it has a Land Rover badge, but personally the back of the disco doesn’t look right to me. Looks like they’ve not put a lot of design effort in to the rear of the car on the exterior.

  10. Looks less like a Landrover and more like a Rangerover,not sure whether that is good or bad.Funny how the masses complained about the rear end of the MG GS,the rear end on this looks very messy.

  11. The sideways view isn’t that attractive, you can see the extra overhang at the back which rather spoils the proportions

    Otherwise smart, but a bit predictable, a bit safe, unlike the very brave Disco 3.

  12. Oh good gods. I’m reminded of the TR7 commentator “oh, they did the same on the other side”.
    Hey Lads I’ve a great idea, let’s take a Citroen DS3, make it bigger, bolt an Evoque front grill on it, go buck tooth redneck/special needs kid at the back and call it a day.. Whaddaya think?
    I honestly didn’t think it could be this bad! It’s the motoring equivalent of one of those plastic surgery nightmare before/after pictures. You know the ones, amazingly beautiful celebrity ends up looking like a scary Borg mother in law.
    I wish I could unsee this, it deserves to bomb like Lancia residuals, but I bet it won’t.

    • “It’s the motoring equivalent of one of those plastic surgery nightmare before/after pictures. You know the ones, amazingly beautiful celebrity ends up looking like a scary Borg mother in law.”

      Okay, I’ll run with that analogy!

  13. The more I look, the worse it gets. Who on earth penned this?
    The line between the headlights and taillights doesn’t match, either up, inline or down, and is more annoying than waking up next to Jar Jar Binks, sober.
    It manages to carry the rear end inbred redneck look around the side.. You half imagine that if it had autodrive it’d rumble off looking for American teens to torture and slaughter in creative ways.. “hmm, you look tired, let’s try an off road tyre facelift..” cue deranged revving and flying chunks of flesh.
    The back end tries to look feminine & svelte, it ends up looking like a gastric band recipient in skimpies..

    I think Aliens put it perfectly

    “I say we dust off and nuke the site from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure..”

  14. “clever fold down panel”

    Like they’ve had from the 70’s

    “that can seat three adults”

    Or 1 1/2 Texans.

    And have you ever tried to explain Bluetooth or tap-to-pay to a 70 year old retired company director or bored baronet? A Wi-Fi hotspot, when 99% of phones already have them, have you spared a thought for the poor IT bodies who’ll have to explain this feature, multiple times, explain it isn’t free after massive charges are racked up, reset it, multiple times, all without the benefit of a roll of carpet and a bag of quicklime (see bofh for details)? I can..
    Oh god and the obligatory British engineering spiel..

    “loved by all”

    Yeah, until it’s 3am, it’s minus something, you’re in the middle of a blizzard with a hammer, and the starter has jammed.. Again.

    I think I might be channelling John Cleese in Clockwise..

    • ““loved by all”

      Yeah, until it’s 3am, it’s minus something, you’re in the middle of a blizzard with a hammer, and the starter has jammed.. Again.”

      Is that a Disco 5 design feature that I haven’t heard of? Otherwise, I don’t understand why you said it. Please explain…

      • One of the joys of British engineering, or at least British Leyland engineering was the fairly regular need to beat the living daylights out of the starter motor on various models of BL FWD cars because the sliding pinion on the starter would jam on its shaft and refuse to engage (it works kind of like a centrifugal clutch) the starter ring. This usually happened when you were late, it was freezing & the sea was trying to retake the land by air drop. I think some Ford cars might have had the same problem and they’d have been worse cos you’d need to go from below..

  15. I think the elephant in the room is an elephant! It’s 5m long!!!
    I can’t imagine how long a Range Rover is! While the styling is fine, I think they should have made it look more distinctive from the rest of the range.

  16. No surprise to learn that I am not a fan of the styling or the loss of some of the practical features of the outgoing model.

    Part of the problem with the odd looking rear-end styling (as mentioned by other commenters) is the move towards a horizontally emphasised tail-lamp treatment rather than the vertical stacked design of previous generation Discoverys that would have made the off-set placement of the number plate surface form appear less severe than it now is. The attempt to soften it has been attempted rather superficially with the placing of the maker’s oval badge and a trim level identity.

    A shame that the tail-lamps, other design features and surface forms look too similar to the Discovery Sport and even the more upmarket Range Rover models; a real mis-mash coalition of taking many features from these aforementioned models and mixing them together Jamie Oliver style. The end result is no longer a distinctive family identity of Discovery versus the rest, but one design theme that actually seems to blur the visual design boundaries between Land Rover and Range Rover.

    The interior, though, isn’t so bad and there are some good storage touches here.

  17. Oh no……what have they done. I assume the design of the body was subcontracted to the designers of the Nissan Juke. It looks like a Landrover suffering from piles.

    • They’ve picked the perfect colour for the first pictures then. Then again it could have been worse, they could have resurrected Allegro skidmark brown.. I mean I know it was the 1970s but that colour made it look like an Argentinosaurus dropped a steamer.

      • don’t forget disintry beige or the puse yellow! Though I think BINI are bringing some of those old colours back – especially the undercoat blue which I have seen a lot recently!

  18. Oh no, it looks different from the original model – how dare JLR stay contemporary and design a car that looks fantastic and modern. After all, their sales have been so awful over the last few years. They obviously don’t know what they are doing – that explains how they’re losing so much money, closing all their factories, and hardly employing anyone at all.

    Why can’t we just stay in the past to keep those commentators without the money to buy one happy?

    Grrrrr

    • Are those that have bought a 2015 D4 new (and are the first line of prospects to buy the new one) allowed to say that it’s deeply disappointing and that I’ve already started looking for the alternative? Or do we leave Gerry McGovern with the impression that he can design whatever he likes and that we’ll buy it, come what may?

  19. I think and hope it will sell like hot cakes. Per Land Rover it is lighter, narrower and longer then the Disco 3/4. Allegedly it is supposed to be even better off road. If that is correct it will be some machine?
    Personally, I don’t have a problem with it’s looks, although the distinction between the Disco and the RRS has all but gone.
    As ever Land Rover prices creep ever upwards, £65k for a Disco! I have not seen the model by model prices but I expect the ever popular HSE version will be north of £60k and I bet they still charge an extra £400 for privacy class.
    It will be interesting to see if the Highways Agency will be able to afford them?

  20. Quite a few comments across the net from Discowners that the new one looks fit only for poseurs, which seems strangely ironic – surely if a vehicle is bought as a tool and this new one is more capable and efficient, then what does it matter if it looks slightly more car-like?

    Design-wise, all Japanese pickups are abysmal and often rather gauche but they’re very useful, so the people who actually get them dirty don’t care.

    The new car may be slightly bland but that’s the point – it’s supposed to look like the sophisticated business car/posh family bus that it is. The old one never sold in huge numbers and as it became less utilitarian in style, sales improved. It’s also worth considering that there has to be space for the new Defender alongside this, which won’t be a road tractor like the original, so LR needs to leave room for a more “roughly-toughty”-looking model.

  21. Speaking as a D4 owner, the problem is that this vehicle is not necessarily more capable, or even as capable as the old car.
    The huge, flat, cargo area has been very badly compromised by a heavily tapering rear end, rear seats that leave the load bay far removed from being flat, while the fold down platform in the back is a very poor substitute for the fold down tailgate.
    This is no longer a dignified working car and it’s pretty grating to be continually told that it is by those who may have no direct experience of using the current car and even by Land Rover themselves!

    • Hello John,

      If this car is a good bit longer than the old and has ditched the separate chassis, yet has a smaller load bay then that really is a duff bit of design.

      Sounds like you’ve had first-hand experience of the new car, so you can probably confirm whether the boot is smaller and more difficult to access, or does it just look smaller?

        • Okay, that didn’t work!

          To illustrate the point, copy and paste this link into your address bar to be reminded what the inside of a D4 looks like (huge, square in volume and door aperture, massive headroom and a completely flat and level floor):

          Here’s the equivalent from their own configurator page:

          And here’s a picture of the load bay from the side. Note the catastrophic slope to the rear and its devastating affect on the potential luggage height.

          I am well used to using a D4 for load carrying duties but no, I haven’t seen the D5 in person. However, the photos that I’ve seen (such as those above) and the reports and photos that I’ve seen from people who have seen it, all back up the photos shown above.

          It might be more modern, but it doesn’t save it from being a relatively hopeless load carrier.

          • While we are at it, check out the cars in plan view:

            Old:

            New:

            See how the new D5 tapers to the back, narrowing the load back and limiting the width of the rear door.

          • Not exactly a like for like comparison, makes the new one look Discosport sized – depends on angle, lens, perspective. Certainly, the top of the aperture looks to sacrifice a couple of inches to aerodynamics, but with a hole that big, how often will the extreme top corners affect access?

            Everyone I know who has a Disco also has a pickup or Defender for the bulky and mucky stuff.
            I’m intrigued John, what is it you regularly carry that uses every inch of that space?

          • Nice one! OK, the Discovery may be so versatile as to have strayed beyond its intended market as a recreational vehicle for “lifestyle” pursuits, but I doubt there’s a manufacturer in the world who’s ever sat down with a design brief for a car to carry one of those!

            Cheers John, made me chuckle!

          • Why would you spend north of £40k to shift a photocopier in several pieces when you could do what we did and spend £30k on this?

            (Corrupted jpeg removed)

            We can shift six of those in one go! …. muppet

    • The Disco stopped being a “dignified working car” a long time ago!

      Feel free to check out the Hilux or Navarra at your local Toyota or Nissan showroom 🙂

      • May I take it that you aren’t aware of the “commercial” version of the Disco 4 that’s been extremely popular with a lot of working users? The last remaining examples sold out around 6 months before the regular D4 finished production.

        • Has the current Discovery 4 officially ended production yet? I assumed it would run until at least November given that the new model won’t arrive in showrooms until the first quarter of next year.

        • There was a Metro panel van too but it was designed first and foremost as a family car, as was the Discovery. The ratio of Disco commercial vs. car variants seen on the road shows where the priority lies.

          There’s most likely some marketing jiggery pokery going on with this new Discovery – think of it more as an additional, school bus model then wait and see what the new Defender turns out to be.

          • One interesting quirk of UK road law, is that a Metro van, as a CDV (and indeed any car derived van) can travel at regular car speed limits.
            However a brand new small van like a Transit Connect or Renault Kangoo has to travel at the lower ‘commercial vehicle’ speed limits. Noticable with the Vauxhall Combo, which used to be Corsa based, and is now Fiat Doblo based.

          • To quote one disappointed farmer on YouTube “I’ve know castrated bulls come faster than the new Defender” (!)

          • I think we can all agree that LR needs to hurry up and launch a new Defender in order to maintain its macho offroad credibility, or at least give us a launch date,

  22. Land Rovers are starting to look alike, I can’t tell the difference now between them, not that impressed tbh…

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