The only reason that you would buy a Rolls-Royce Ghost is because you can’t afford a Phantom. It’s the same story with the Porsche Coxster. Some say that this car tells the world your wife has left you. It doesn’t. What it says is: “I haven’t got enough disposable income to stretch to a 911.”
Land Rover are very good at avoiding this pitfall. When you have a Discovery, it’s because you need seven seats or because you are a murderer. When you have a Range Rover Sport, it’s not because you can’t quite afford the real thing: it’s because you are a drug dealer.
However, I really thought they’d come a cropper with the Evoque. I thought it would be a cheap facsimile of the real thing. A Faberge egg made from plastic. A Montblanc ballpoint with a big heart.
This made me cross. No one likes Range Rovers more than l do, and I saw the Evoque as a cheap tool for screwing the world’s idiots and ruining the brand all at the same time.
They were going to major on style. lt would be all form and no function. l mean they were using Victoria Beckham as a design consultant and what good would that be when you were in a bog in Botswana. “Well at least it doesn’t have a VPL.” This is important. A car can and should be stylish, but it MUST be able to cash the cheques that its badge is writing. A Ferrari cannot have a 1.3-litre engine, no matter how pretty the body might be.
The Evoque is very pretty. The three-door especially is one of the best-looking ears on the road today. But if you look down between the front seats, you will note that it has the same all-terrain functions that you get on its big brother. You can’t see its knickers and yet it can still uproot a tree.
It’s Fatima Whitbread in a Scarlett Johansson suit. But, best of all, it drives like a dream. Oh, they must have been tempted to make it[singlepic id=9181 w=320 h=240 float=right] feel sporty, especially the three-door version, which puts me in mind of the old Lancia HPE or Volvo PIBOOES.
But, mercifully, common sense prevailed and they tuned the seats and the suspension for comfort.
Sure, it handles nicely; the steering is good and the brakes powerful. But the ride is sublime. It’s more comfortable and less fidgety even than the standard Range Rover.
You can even spec it to the same level with a screen that displays TV pictures to the passenger and satnav to the driver… at the same time, and all the other little electronic niceties that make the big car feel like a Roller.
Obviously, neither the diesel nor the petrol engines can deliver the V8 clout that normally goes hand in hand with the Range Rover badge. But put your foot down in either, and it’s not like you’re left sitting there, thinking:
“Is the carpet stuck behind the throttle pedal?”
Neither is fast. But neither is slow, either.
They are just engines, and because of that, l’d opt for the diesel. I guarantee this. If you drive a normal Range Rover and you take an Evoque out for a test drive, you will – if you’re like me – want to hate it. But after about five miles, you will start to wonder why you wouldn’t swap. I mean, if you do go for the diesel you could pretty much halve your fuel bills at a stroke. And the joy of being able to park in a normal-size parking bay…
Some say the Evoque is expensive, but that can’t be so, or the factory wouldn’t be hiring anyone with a nose and ears. If it were too much, the order books wouldn’t be bulging.
No, It costs more than a Ford Kuga or a RAW because it is so much better.
[singlepic id=9174 w=320 h=240 float=left]There’s more, too. Drive one, and you aren’t saying you can’t afford its big brother. You’re saying that you could but there’s no need. The only real drawback is that I couldn’t get my shotgun in the boot. Oh, and looking through the rear window is like looking at the world from inside a postbox. But that’s really the extent of it.
There have been many great cars launched over the past l2 months. l’m particularly fond of the BMW 1M, and the absurd new black series offering from AMG. But these are one-trick ponies. The Evoque is more than that. It’s a pony that’s also a racehorse, a shire horse, a dxay horse, a show jumper and an easy rosette winner in the dressage competition. It’s brilliant.
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