Overview

The Range Rover is the original luxury SUV. The first-generation model was launched in 1970 – and it quickly became the default option for those wanting a car that was sumptuously comfortable on the road and utterly unstoppable off it. For more than 50 years, the Range Rover has filled that brief excellently.

However, Land Rover’s competitors have since recognised the success of the Range Rover’s formula. Now, most luxury brands offer an imitation, with cars like the BMW X7, Bentley Bentayga, Mercedes GLS and Rolls-Royce Cullinan springing out of the woodwork to pry the aristocracy’s money from their wallets.

We still love the Range Rover, though. None of its rivals have the same pedigree, and none can waft down the motorway or tackle a rutted greenlane with the same level of deftness. In fact, we love it so much that we gave it our luxury car of the year award in luxury car of the year 2023. You’ll also find it in our lists of the best luxury SUVs on sale and our rundown of the best luxury hybrid cars.

What’s surprising is that there have only been five Range Rovers in the past five decades. Land Rover’s product cycles for the car are simply enormous, probably because they’ve all been designed to be as timeless as possible. For the sake of a comparison, there have been eight Volkswagen Golfs in the same space of time.

Inside, the latest Range Rover is packed full of technology that not only makes the driver’s life more comfortable and more convenient – and its chassis is propped up by some fantastic hardware that helps the corner better than it has any right to.

As before, there are a wide range of models to choose from. You can it in standard wheelbase guise, as well as long wheelbase and long wheelbase with seven seats. And you can supplement all these models with an extensive list of optional extras that includes a refrigerator, four-zone climate control and screens for those in the rear.

Options like this cement the Range Rover’s position as a top-shelf luxury limo that’s probably on the same shopping list BMW 7-Series and Mercedes S-Class. If you’d like to learn more about how we sized up the Range Rover’s rivals, get clued up on our process by reading our how we test cars page.

Trim levels on the standard-length model include (in ascending price order) SE, HSE, Autobiography, and the V8-powered SV. There are fewer options available on the long wheelbase models; the seven-seater, for example, is only available in Land Rover’s SE, HSE and Autobiography trims.

A pure electric Range Rover has been teased, but for now you have a choice of mild hybrid petrols and diesels as well as a pair of impressive plug-in hybrids. With a starting price of just over £100,000, though, don’t expect any model to be a bargain.

Over the next few pages, we’ll thoroughly review all aspects of the Range Rover before offering our final verdict. Along the way, we’ll consider its practicality, the quality and comfort of its interior, the strengths of its technology, its driving experience and how much it’ll cost you to keep it on the road.