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British Rugby Star Owen Farrell Allows Himself to Be Beaten by an Evoque

Being a British brand by excellence - and one renowned for its ruggedness no less - it's only natural for Land Rover to join hands with the only sport that shares both of these attributes: rugby.
Range Rover Evoque vs. Owen Farrell 15 photos
Photo: Land Rover
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While it may not be the most popular type of sport in the UK - that honor has to go to football (or soccer, depending on which side of the Atlantic you read this from) - it's definitely the one commanding the most respect. The commitment shown by the players is overmatched only by the very high levels of physicality, resulting in a highly entertaining sport to watch.

To play it, though, one needs to train extremely hard, which is why rugby players are some of the best athletes out there. Among them, Owen Farrell, a player for both the English national team and Saracens FC, managed to shine through. He was the inaugural winner of the Anthony Foley Memorial Trophy for the European player of the year, and also the man Land Rover chose for its latest publicity stunt.

If the Land Rover badge has plenty in common with rugby, not the same can be said about Range Rover. Even though the sport was aristocratic in nature at first, that's still not enough to bridge it with the posh Evoque of today. Or at least that's what we believed.

Land Rover thought differently. They gathered the fly-half and the new Range Rover Evoque on a rugby field and pitted one against the other. The crossover is powered by the new 2.0-liter four-cylinder Ingenium turbocharged gasoline engine, developing 290 horsepower and enabling a 0-60 mph spring of just six seconds - the best in the Evoque range. Farrell, on the other hand, is only powered by his two legs.

The challenge chosen is the bleep-test (or beep-test, or multi-stage fitness test), one of the most grueling athletic trials, if not terribly spectacular to watch. Which is how one might describe Land Rover's clip as well. The stunt is pretty stupid to begin with: the bleep-test uses repetitive 20-meter sprints, which is too short of a distance for a vehicle even to stretch its legs. Not to mention it had to turn after each of these runs.

In the real world, the car wouldn't stand a chance. In Land Rover's universe, it's a close call, but the SUV just edges it. And it does the same for the rematch on grass after the dirt and gravel surface of the first one - which is actually just a pretext to show the Terrain Response System. Still, if you love rugby - and you should - it's worth a watch.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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