Range Rover Evoque (2012) long-term test review
By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests
Musings on the Evoque’s chassis on a London dash – 27 April 2011
I turned yesterday’s 75-minute commute into a three-and-a-half hour odyssey, by taking the Evoque into London on a CAR-related errand. Our mission was to drop off numerous back issues at a photographer’s studio, standing in the shadows of Arsenal’s Emirates stadium.
The capital is the fashionable Evoque’s ‘natural habitat’, scornful cynics will cry. Obviously, that’s why Land Rover created it, to lure in new customers. And having threaded numerous leviathan 4x4s through London, the Evoque’s compact footprint is a blessing. I slid through a narrow gap to catch a green light that proved beyond the lumbering XC90 beside me, found parking painless, and made mincemeat of a three-point turn under rush-hour pressure.
This four-wheel drive Evoque handles tidily for an SUV. I’m a bit Goldilocks when it comes to steering set-up: I don’t wish to prove my manhood with a Hercules-heavy rack, nor can I abide light and flighty. The Evoque is a very nice compromise between the two: the wheel feels satisfyingly substantial to turn, and responsive and linear as you add lock. Pitch the car into a corner and OY12 OTE clings doggedly to its line. It reminds you of a sweetly set-up hatchback: the body rolls pliantly, the front-end grips steadfastly, you can precisely adjust your line with little steering inputs.
Such composure and precision is beyond the Evoque’s Freelander cousin. Saying the two cars share a platform is a bit like comparing an early click wheel iPod with an iPad 3. Only one structural part – a section of the floorpan beneath the rear seats – is common to both. The Freelander’s EU-CD platform was the engineering team’s starting point, but according to programme manager Paul Cleaver, they swiftly realised it was too tall and the bonnet too high to accommodate the LRX show car’s very different proportions. They needed greater flexibility to mate the sleeker outline to a sufficiently spacious cabin, and to deliver a trademark Land Rover command driving position.
Stripping out weight (the comparative TD4 4wd Evoque is 115kg lighter than the larger Freelander) to improve efficiency, lowering the centre of gravity to boost agility, new suspension subframes and fuel tank, a re-routed exhaust and a new electronic architecture to support new gadgets meant the workload piled up. ‘Ultimately we had to redesign the architecture, so this is Land Rover’s new mid-sized platform,’ says Cleaver.
Another change is that the Evoque can accommodate 20-inch rims, which CAR specified. And the ride quality is surprisingly good, it really is. If you’re looking for it, you can feel the wheels fidgeting over pitted and pockmarked tarmac sections. But larger bumps, potholes and camber changes are managed really well at motorway speeds: the ride doesn’t feel jarring or crashy. Credit the adaptive dampers, which come as standard on this £39,990 Dynamic model (with the higher output diesel, automatic transmission and four-wheel drivetrain). But more on these dampers in a future blog.
After a satisfyingly swift journey through north London, I reached my rendezvous with photographer Sun Lee. He identified me by clocking the Evoque, and told me last time he was up close with one of these was the actual LRX show car. ‘I’m so pleased it go through to production without being watered down – it’s still a cool car,’ he said. And we know who to thank for that: the Evoque design and engineering team.
By Phil McNamara
Long Term Tests
Musings on the Evoque’s chassis on a London dash – 27 April 2011I turned yesterday’s 75-minute commute into a three-and-a-half hour odyssey, by taking the Evoque into London on a CAR-related errand. Our mission was to drop off numerous back issues at a photographer’s studio, standing in the shadows of Arsenal’s Emirates stadium.
The capital is the fashionable Evoque’s ‘natural habitat’, scornful cynics will cry. Obviously, that’s why Land Rover created it, to lure in new customers. And having threaded numerous leviathan 4x4s through London, the Evoque’s compact footprint is a blessing. I slid through a narrow gap to catch a green light that proved beyond the lumbering XC90 beside me, found parking painless, and made mincemeat of a three-point turn under rush-hour pressure.
This four-wheel drive Evoque handles tidily for an SUV. I’m a bit Goldilocks when it comes to steering set-up: I don’t wish to prove my manhood with a Hercules-heavy rack, nor can I abide light and flighty. The Evoque is a very nice compromise between the two: the wheel feels satisfyingly substantial to turn, and responsive and linear as you add lock. Pitch the car into a corner and OY12 OTE clings doggedly to its line. It reminds you of a sweetly set-up hatchback: the body rolls pliantly, the front-end grips steadfastly, you can precisely adjust your line with little steering inputs.
Such composure and precision is beyond the Evoque’s Freelander cousin. Saying the two cars share a platform is a bit like comparing an early click wheel iPod with an iPad 3. Only one structural part – a section of the floorpan beneath the rear seats – is common to both. The Freelander’s EU-CD platform was the engineering team’s starting point, but according to programme manager Paul Cleaver, they swiftly realised it was too tall and the bonnet too high to accommodate the LRX show car’s very different proportions. They needed greater flexibility to mate the sleeker outline to a sufficiently spacious cabin, and to deliver a trademark Land Rover command driving position.
Stripping out weight (the comparative TD4 4wd Evoque is 115kg lighter than the larger Freelander) to improve efficiency, lowering the centre of gravity to boost agility, new suspension subframes and fuel tank, a re-routed exhaust and a new electronic architecture to support new gadgets meant the workload piled up. ‘Ultimately we had to redesign the architecture, so this is Land Rover’s new mid-sized platform,’ says Cleaver.
Another change is that the Evoque can accommodate 20-inch rims, which CAR specified. And the ride quality is surprisingly good, it really is. If you’re looking for it, you can feel the wheels fidgeting over pitted and pockmarked tarmac sections. But larger bumps, potholes and camber changes are managed really well at motorway speeds: the ride doesn’t feel jarring or crashy. Credit the adaptive dampers, which come as standard on this £39,990 Dynamic model (with the higher output diesel, automatic transmission and four-wheel drivetrain). But more on these dampers in a future blog.
After a satisfyingly swift journey through north London, I reached my rendezvous with photographer Sun Lee. He identified me by clocking the Evoque, and told me last time he was up close with one of these was the actual LRX show car. ‘I’m so pleased it go through to production without being watered down – it’s still a cool car,’ he said. And we know who to thank for that: the Evoque design and engineering team.
By Phil McNamara
Categories:
Range Rover Evoque,
Reviews
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