Photo: SB-Medien
With the Land Rover Discovery Vision Concept having previewed the future Discovery sub-range, the British engineers are now working overtime to test the upcoming production member. Their latest efforts sees the future Discovery Sport, a replacement for the Freelander / LR2 being pushed hard on the Nurburgring.
Land Rover is expected to introduce the Discovery Sport by the end of the current year, as this is the model that will start the new Discovery revolution. The crossover will be launched as a five-seater initially, while a versions with seating for seven is set to follow soon.
Underneath the fresh styling cues, we find a modified version of the Range Rover Evoque’s platform. Dubbed LR-MS, this is an architecture dating back to the Ford ownership era, albeit with Land Rover bragging only 10 percent of the components are unchanged.
In a rather fitting move for a crossover, the Discovery Sport will arrive just in time to benefit from Jaguar Land Rover’s upcoming four-cylinder Ingenium engine family. This will include both petrol and diesel units and we may also expect the 3.0-liter supercharged V6 in JLR’s parts bin. The powerplants will be shared with Jaguar’s upcoming mid-size sports sedan, the XE.
While the entry-level models will be fitted with a manual tranny, the rest of the range will come with the nine-speed automatic on the Evoque.
And while the science fiction-like array of technologies previewed by the Discovery Vision Concept won’t be offered on the Discovery Sport in full form, we can expect some interesting goodies to show up. For one thing, we’ll probably receive the next generation of Land Rover’s Terrain Response system. Don’t hold your breath for the laser technology reading the car’s surroundings though.
Before you move on to studying the hidden lines of the Discovery Sport prototype, we'd like to remind you the future sub-range will include other two proposals. One will be a rather rugged approach, taking the current offroading legacy of Discovery / LR4 further, albeit without a separate chassis. The other will be a bit of an upmarket proposal, which will exploit the world's increasing need for plush crossovers.
Underneath the fresh styling cues, we find a modified version of the Range Rover Evoque’s platform. Dubbed LR-MS, this is an architecture dating back to the Ford ownership era, albeit with Land Rover bragging only 10 percent of the components are unchanged.
In a rather fitting move for a crossover, the Discovery Sport will arrive just in time to benefit from Jaguar Land Rover’s upcoming four-cylinder Ingenium engine family. This will include both petrol and diesel units and we may also expect the 3.0-liter supercharged V6 in JLR’s parts bin. The powerplants will be shared with Jaguar’s upcoming mid-size sports sedan, the XE.
While the entry-level models will be fitted with a manual tranny, the rest of the range will come with the nine-speed automatic on the Evoque.
And while the science fiction-like array of technologies previewed by the Discovery Vision Concept won’t be offered on the Discovery Sport in full form, we can expect some interesting goodies to show up. For one thing, we’ll probably receive the next generation of Land Rover’s Terrain Response system. Don’t hold your breath for the laser technology reading the car’s surroundings though.
Before you move on to studying the hidden lines of the Discovery Sport prototype, we'd like to remind you the future sub-range will include other two proposals. One will be a rather rugged approach, taking the current offroading legacy of Discovery / LR4 further, albeit without a separate chassis. The other will be a bit of an upmarket proposal, which will exploit the world's increasing need for plush crossovers.
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