OVERVIEW-What is it?

The Velar plugs a gap in, er, Land Rover’s range of Range Rovers. It’s bigger than the Evoque but smaller than the Sport. It lives on the same platform as the Jaguar F-Pace, but it looks longer, lower, less upright, and more ‘woah’ quite frankly.

It’s expensive, but it’s good fortune to look and feel expensive too. It’s luxurious and has more off-road capability than most rivals – and than the Jag. In size, the Velar sits somewhere between a BMW X4 and X6, Mercedes GLC Coupe and GLE Coupe, and above the Audi Q5. If you can’t best the Germans, then split the difference and find your own niche.

Smooth, pared-back and slimmed-down style takes priority over absolute space or off-road ruggedness. The Velar’s silhouette is quite fast, marked by a rising belt, falling roof, pinched tail and a lot of screen rake. The surfaces are pure as snow. Especially around the nose, it’s naked of step-lines, the grille, lamps and bumper meticulously flush. Which makes the numberplate plinth stand out like a flesh wound. Also the fake vents on the bonnet and below the door mirrors.

But in all it’s a very well-worked shape, and if you see it alongside a Range Rover Sport you instantly see how the skin has been pulled tight, the roof dropped and the details finely slimmed. Mmm, pop-out door handles.

The cabin is even more of a revelation, for the way style and function meet in glass-cockpit system for displays and controls.

It doesn’t have a low-ratio transfer box, nor the decoupling anti-roll bars you can get on the Sport. So it’s not fully specced to Land Rover’s outermost off roader level. But by most standards it’s massively capable in the wilderness, which is reassuring for that sense of authenticity when you’re parking next to all the German fodder in the farm food shop car park.

For 2021, there’s a new range of engines, including a plug-in hybrid P400e version with some 53 kilometres of claimed engine-off range. We’ve tested it alongside the D300 diesel, now a 48-volt mild-hybrid-assisted straight-six which saves 7kg versus the V6 it’s replacing, and the four-cylinder D200 diesel.

WHAT IS THE VERDICT?

“The Velar majors on style but it's still a useful car. It's roomy enough for a family, not so big it's awkward in cities, and capable of unusual off-road feats”

The Velar majors on style but it’s still a useful car. It’s roomy enough for a family, not so big it’s awkward in cities, and capable of unusual off-road feats. In a way it’s hard to see direct rivals: the Jaguar F-Pace sister car goes up against the ‘sportier’ German opposition.

The Velar’s cabin and new display/control system are good to use, and beautiful. It’s a nice place to be in the long-term, but the initial impact is stunning. Give anyone a lift and they’ll be wowed.

For the driver, it’s about relaxed security rather than engagement. Let it lower your heartbeat and enjoy the panoramic view of the scenery. And the new range of engines appear to have futureproofed it a little longer.

If a Defender is too upright and utilitarian for your tastes, this is the Land Rover to be seen in. The D300 is a peach, the P400 is amusing, and the P400e PHEV a really well-sorted plug-in option in a very cutthroat area of the market. In short, Land Rover has taken a car that was very good, and made it better, without upsetting the looks that made you want one in the first place.

DRIVING-What is it like to drive? 

To keep the Velar on pace with rivals, Land Rover has totally overhauled its engine range. And the buzzword, as you’d expect in our changing times, is ‘hybrid’. The straight-six petrol and diesel offerings are now offered with 48-volt hybrid boost assistance, to reduce turbo lag and enhance throttle response. You know the drill.

Electro-zap doesn’t make the Velar’s engines night-and-day snappier than before, but the D300 is a great all-rounder: smooth, quiet, easy-going and good for 0-97kph in 6 seconds, and all-the in-gear shove you could ever realistically ask for in a two-tonne SUV. Wind it out a bit and it even generates a cultured six-pot growl.

Land Rover claims 7.4l/100km – we got 8.8l/100km, and that was from an example just a few 160 kilometres old. Even if you have to shut your eyes and hold your nose when ticking the ‘diesel’ box on the configurator, there’s still a deep sense of ‘rightness’, of this being the most appropriate engine that the Velar was born to cradle. Of course, this is probably the last diesel engine Jag-Land Rover will ever develop. If so, it’s a masterpiece to sign off on.

Even the four-cylinder D200 diesel is a decent thing. Nothing like the performance of the D300 of course, but for cruising around it's more than enough engine. Keep the revs low and it's quiet too. You may see over 7.06l/100km on the motorway, where the D200 acquits itself rather well, too.

So, what’ll take the diesels' place? Plug-in powertrains, of course. The headline act for Velar v1.2 is the P400e – not to be confused with the P400, which is a 400bhp straight-six petrol offering, sitting above the P340 engine in the range. Anyway, the P400e teams a 300bhp four-cylinder engine with a 17.1kWh battery pack beneath the boot floor, fed from a 7kW on-board charger that’ll juice up to 80 per cent in half an hour from a public rapid charger or 1hour 40mins on your home wallbox.

Teamed with a 140bhp e-motor, the Velar’s P400e powertrain sends it from 0-97kph in a very respectable 5.1 sec, and gives official test results of 2.17l/100km with CO2 emissions rated at 49g/km. Now, if you’re PHEV-literate you’ll know such numbers are a fiction unless you allow the engine to switch on less often than a student flat’s central heating, but even so, we found an indicated 3.77l/100km was possible on a 48-kilometre test route, which conveniently consumed all of the battery reserves.

Enough stats. What you need to know is this is a good PHEV, not a token one. You don’t get the sense this is merely an underpowered petrol car with the motor from a stubble shaver shoved in as an afterthought. Performance on the e-motor alone is adequate, and the handover moment between electric and petrol is seamless. There’s a real sense the electric half of the equation is pulling its (considerable) weight and adding potency to the powertrain, while keeping engine revs low so the fossil-fuel burning bit doesn’t come over all reedy and strained.

Yes, its feels heavier in the thickset steering and the body control, and you can sense the ride isn’t as deftly damped as a regular Velar. It’s a bit of a shame given this car’s styling only works on enormous ferris-wheel sized alloys, but not a dealbreaker. The brake pedal isn’t typically mushy like some hybrids too. If you’re doing city work, this is the Velar to have.

Another well-resolved aspect is how you interact with the P400e’s modes. VW Group SUVs see fit to bury their driver modes in a touchscreen sub-menu dungeon where you’ll never find them. Land Rover has reserved a handy slab of touchscreen real estate for the EV Mode, Hybrid Mode and Charge Save Mode buttons, so they’re always at hand to make best use of your chosen power source. Well played.

Don’t come to the Velar for Porsche Macan-like agility. Like a proper Range Rover, it’s dignified and in command of most situations, with well-oiled accurate steering. If you’re in a real hurry, the sport mode does tauten the damping, lower the body and shift more power to the rear.

It doesn’t really want to be hoiked around tight corners like this, mind. It’s too remote and isolated. In fact, a Range Rover Sport, with its adaptive anti-roll bars, can actually feel more lithe and engaging.

Acting like this is just one pole of its abilities. The other pole is the off-road modes, raising it off the ground (if it’s specced with air springs), changing powertrain calibration and the traction and diff thresholds. It’s got wade sensing so it’ll ford a flood, and doors that wrap down around the sills so you don’t get mucky calves when you get in and out. When you are in those modes, the head-up display shows axle articulation and inclination angles and diff lock status.

Oh, and when you take the PHEV off-road, you can enjoy the gorgeous tweet-tweet-rustle sounds of nature, as you ooze along on battery power, crushing everything in your path.

INTERIOR-What is it like on the inside? 

It’s not as tall as a Range Rover or a Sport, but you still feel elevated. And it does feel like a distinct product, whereas an Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Alfa or Jaguar crossover of this size has a cabin that’s merely a vertically stretched version of those companies’ sedans and coupes.

Ahead is Range Rover’s usual minimalist rectangle of leathered dashboard, with a T-piece coming down as the centre console. The shapes are clean, sparsely ornamented but wrapped in subtle, plush texture. The doors carry big planks of wood, but a reserved, monochrome grain.

The big news here is the display and control system. In the centre console are two big touchscreens, both apparently edgeless and glossy-black when the ignition’s turned off. The lower one carries a pair of knurled twist-and push knobs.

Switch on and the upper screen is much like any other upmarket car’s: it carries navigation, entertainment, comms and lots of configurable car features. It’s not overloaded by having to carry the climate control though. While this display was fine when the Velar launched, it’s now starting to age and Land Rover has designed itself into a corner here. The pop-out screen recess isn’t large enough for the new ‘Pivi Pro’ system as found in the latest Defender and Discovery 5. Whoops.

Climate is on the lower screen: it has very nicely rendered graphics of zephyrs of temperate air wafting into the occupants. The two knurled knobs control driver and passenger temperature. Or push them and they’re the seat heaters, their markings changing to suit. Or hit the seat massage button on the screen and their markings change again, helping you turn up or down the massage’s vigour.

You soon realise this is a whole lot easier than using a touch-screen alone. And those wheels have other context-dependent functions, each time changing their markings to suit. If you hit a tab that replaces the climate screen by the dynamics mode screen, you can change off-road mode with the knob.

You’ve also got a reconfigurable set of TFT driver instruments. Plus a head-up display. With all this screen area, some of which can be sub-divided at will, it’s easily possible to have everything you want on show all the time. You don’t have to keep jabbing at buttons for ‘nav’ ‘media’ or ‘car’ because they can have a screen each. This makes it far easier to use than many screen-based systems.

For instance on a long drive through unknown country you can swipe the music display and controls down onto the lower screen, then use the upper one for a full north-up map, and have your 3D local map in the instrument cluster. If you’re swapping often between dynamic modes, leave that on the bottom screen, and divide the top screen to show entertainment and nav, and have your trip computer in the instruments. Note that the new steering wheel, incongruously from the Defender, has slightly less expensive looking illuminated controls these days.

Because the front seats are bulky, there isn’t the legroom you’d hope for behind. It’s OK for most adults though, and they get ports and vents and lights.

Cabin storage is tight. There’s no deep storage bin in the centre console. The boot is big in area but a little shallow, but because this is a long car the overall capacity beats rivals.

Under the floor it only makes room for a space saver, but that’s better than just a can of repair gloop when you’ve slashed a tyre in the wilderness.

Special mention to the optional Meridian sound system, which sounds like music rather than like a music system. That’s unusual in a car.

Another option is the textured cloth upholstery, for vegetarians who don’t want leather. We’d choose it on comfort alone.
 

BUYING-What should i be paying? 

Prices for the 2021 Velar start at £46,110 (RM265k), but the Velar you get for your £46k (RM265k) is apologetically specced on sofa castor wheels with all the kerbside presence of a recently discarded household appliance. You’re going to need to throw some money at it to get the trim, colour and rims that do this shape justice. About £60k (RM345k) ought to do it.

R-Dynamic and Edition trims sit above the regular Velar, which is fitted as standard with LED headlights, rain-sensing wipers, 19-inch rims, 8-way electric heated front seats, the 10-inch touchscreen with (haphazard in our experience) Apple and Android mirroring, and a 3D-surround camera. The 6cyl diesel is only available once you’ve stepped up to R-Dynamic trim, and remains our spec choice, at £60,225 (RM345k) with the wonderful D300 powertrain on board.

If you can stomach a lowly diesel and Dacia-spec wheels, we found Velars on PCP for £580 (RM3.3k) online, with a top-end P400 asking around £870 (RM5k) a month.

That compares favourably with similar-spec BMW X4s (yuck) and the likes of the vastly less stylish Mercedes GLC Coupe, thanks to Land Rover’s strong residuals. Mind you, Top Gear’s Velar long-termer was infamous for irritating connectivity issues and a propensity for its touchscreen to shut down or boot smartphones off the connection whenever the mood took it. If your Velar is similarly afflicted, demand your dealer sort a software upgrade, because this is too good a car, and too likeable an SUV to be spoiled by JLR screen-itus.

Note that many of the off-road features are optional, so think carefully about what you’ll be using your Velar for.