SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


We live the good life in the 2012 Range Rover Vogue SE TDV8

Pics by author

Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday July 7, 2012

All the comforts of home

It’s scary, actually. The Range Rover turned 42 a couple of weeks ago. That’s older than some of our readers. Early records, set to persuade buyers that a luxury four-wheel drive SUV was the way of the future, included being the first vehicle to cross the Darien Gap (1972), a 12 000-km West to East crossing of the Sahara in 100 days (1974), winning the 4x4 class in the 30 000 km London to Sydney Marathon (1977) and winning the very first Paris-Dakar in 1979. And again in 1981, just in case anyone thought it was a fluke.

SUVs are now as common as dirt and Range Rover owners include Royalty, oil sheiks, rock stars, rock climbers, movie stars, sports heroes, skateboarders, inventors, ballerinas and folk like you and me. The important thing to remember is that, in the words of former Land Rover MD Phil Popham, "The Range Rover really is four vehicles in one. It's a seven-days-a-week luxury motor car, a leisure vehicle that will range far and wide on the highways and noways of the world, a high performance car for long distance travel and a working cross-country vehicle."

There has been some middle age spread since those first Classic versions rolled off showroom floors in 1970, but it hasn’t lost any of its vigour. Current South African versions offer a choice of two engines; the 5,0 litre supercharged petrol V8 also found in certain Jaguars and the one we drove recently, a 4,4-litre turbodiesel V8.

Although the original was fairly basic, current Range Rovers offer practically all the comforts of home, because one doesn’t really have to do without simply because one is travelling, does one? First, one needs air suspension to smooth over any roughness in the road and for the extra wheel travel it allows for negotiating rocks and wash-aways. Then one needs dual channel climate control, warmed seats and a toasty steering wheel for those chilly days. HiFi music-on-the-go with surround sound, satellite navigation, video games and movies for the heirs, television reception and personal ‘phone integration are important too.

Obviously full time four-wheel drive, hill descent control, release control, adaptive dynamics, adaptive cruise control, electronic traction control, a terrain response system to deal with any eventuality and all the usual braking aids are not negotiable. Decently spacious and comfortable accommodations, peace and quiet and state-of-the-art lighting are nice too. For those who simply have to have even more creature comforts, Autobiography trim versions are available with both engines so that no one need feel disadvantaged.

How does one describe the Range Rover experience? Big. Quiet. Comfortable. Powerful. The Ford diesel, almost impossible to hear once the doors have closed, pulls like a Percheron from almost any speed in almost any gear; not that you would actually know which gear at any given moment, because the eight-speed torque converter automatic is that smooth. You think to yourself: “I would like to overtake now,” and it is done. It is decently rapid, topping out at 210 km/h if you really feel the need. It is also decently quick, getting up to 100 km/h in 7,8 seconds.

Guzzles diesel like a demon, reckon the cynics. Well, no, actually. We averaged 10,4 l/100 km without driving like your mother. Makes nonsense of the thirsty antics of its gasoline-swilling sister, by the way. Come to think of it, if it goes like this and you can’t even hear the engine working, who wants a petrol version anyway?

The numbers
Price: R1 301 800
Engine: 4367 cc, DOHC, V8 twin-turbodiesel
Power: 230 kW at 4000 rpm
Torque: 700 Nm at 1500 rpm
Maximum speed: 210 km/h
Zero to 100 km/h: 7,8 seconds
Real life fuel consumption: 10,8 l/100 km
Tank: 104 litres
Land Rover Care Plan: 5 years/100 000 km maintenance and roadside assistance

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

Comments?
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