► Visiting the Range Rover’s birthplace
► Experiencing the customer handover
► Read month 1 of our Range Rover long-term test
I’m led into a darkened room and asked to stand on an illuminated circle. The music and light show begins, with imagery projected onto a white-wrapped SUV that revolves slowly. X-ray views of the chassis, then body panels appear and the wheels spin as the Range Rover powers through different landscapes. Dramatically the room goes black once more, the cover is whipped off and there stands my Range Rover. Welcome to a customer handover at the Range Rover Studio in Solihull.
I’ve actually had my Range Rover for several months, but wanted to experience the handover first hand. The journey up shows our Range Rover at its best. Light Friday-morning traffic on the M1, downlighters bathing the cabin in a warm orange hue, the sun slowly rising. At motorway speeds the revcounter sits at 1500rpm with the slumbering straight-six diesel barely perceptible; active noise-cancellation speakers in the plump head restraints muffle most noises, bar occasional tyre hum and gusts of wind around the HGV-sized mirrors.
Press the firmly sprung throttle and the engine growls and dips into its 516lb ft peak torque, the nose surging upwards like the prow of a speedboat. In the age of electric acceleration, the diesel Rangie doesn’t feel physics-defying rapid but adequately brisk.
The cabin’s design may be stripped back and minimalist but it’s like easing yourself into a bath of warm caramel, with its sumptuous seats and air-sprung ride. It feels like being carried in a sedan chair by four very attentive courtiers.
On the final stretch into Solihull, the imperious driving position displays its urban worth: looking over two cars ahead I spy road markings which reveal I’m in the wrong lane when I still have time to correct. Then we’re at the home of Land Rover, having averaged an impressive 41.9mpg over 97 miles.
Besuited deputy venue manager Adam Mercer ushers me into the circular, two-storey studio. Plush carpets, tasteful furniture, pale wood stairs and memorabilia galore: a Sindy doll’s plastic Range Rover, Vogue magazine covers referencing the car’s royal connections.
Over crisp pastries and a cappuccino, Mercer explains that the studio undertakes up to 700 handovers a year, gratis for Autobiography and SV trim customers. Some clients visit to spec their cars, to visualise a £7990 ultra-metallic gloss paint and discuss upholstery swatches with Mercer, a passionate graduate of Coventry University’s automotive design course.
Others are keen to have him set up their cabins and accounts for Alexa and the Range Rover app, either in the studio or at their homes. It’s all part of the obsessively curated Range Rover experience, as is a factory walkaround with senior tour host Luke Jones. Some clients pop in to see their car being built, and all of them will relish the warm feeling you get from seeing the Kingmaker exhibit.
Behind the camouflage paint still adorning the brickwork of 1939’s Block 1, and its revolving door through which Queen Elizabeth II and Winston Churchill once walked, lurks this mini-museum telling the Range Rover’s life story.
It’s beautifully done, with ’60s music and products setting the cultural scene, dues paid to the original Range Rover’s architects and fascinating artefacts such as design sketches, original parts and a replica of the original ‘Road-Rover’ clay. There’s even the fake VELAR badge, fitted to throw snooping rivals and CAR magazine off the scent, made from trimmed ROVER lettering.
Then we tour final assembly. It’s a vast workforce, many of them doing jobs robotised elsewhere. The Sport and flagship Rangie share a line and it’s notable that most dashboards are left-hand drive (82 per cent exported) and that electrification is increasingly shaping the output: as hoists lift cars overhead we see the shiny lithium-ion battery in plug-in bellies.
Time to hit the road again. After a short M40 cruise, we take the A429 into the Cotswolds. The Fosse Way offers gorgeous views across autumnal valleys. There are few testing corners, mind you. This is undoubtedly the most sorted Range Rover ever, with roll better controlled and a newfound ability to carve – rather than understeer – through corners. Up to a point, anyway, given the mass and cushy set-up.
Off the main road we splash through puddles and climb muddy verges to let other cars pass, then reach Bourton-on-the-Water. This beautiful, bustling limestone village is peak Range Rover country, with an L405 on my tail before an L322 whizzes past. I even spot a Rolls-Royce Cullinan.
But it’s so busy. Exiting T-junctions I’m alert to the offside blind spot caused by the Meridian speaker and wing mirror and thankful for the crisp brake pedal to avoid flattening distracted tourists. The rear-wheel steering pivots the car through tight manoeuvres: all the controls feel deliciously matched to that tactile throttle.
What a day. I’ve felt special and welcome in the owners’ inner circle. But the most convincing aspect is that driving a fifth-generation Range Rover lives up to the brand’s luxury backdrop. Want proof? That Rolls-Royce we passed, not for a second did I want to swap.
Read month 1
Read month 2
Read month 3
Read month 4
Logbook: Range Rover D350 HSE
Price: £113,120 (£128,180 as tested)
Performance: 2997cc turbodiesel six-cylinder, 345bhp, 516lb ft, 6.1sec 0-62mph, 145mph
Efficiency: 37.2mpg (official), 35.7mpg (tested), 207g/km CO2
Energy cost: 14.0p per mile
Miles this month: 1214
Total miles: 17,335