Range Rover Evoque: prepare to be blown away.



Cool and capable: Range Rover's new Evoque 5-door. The
smallest-ever Range Rover will also be available as a coupe.
(Picture: Land Rover)

Forget everything you thought you knew about Range Rover’s upcoming Evoque, the smallest and arguably most attractive vehicle in the brand’s line-up. If you were picturing a radical departure from the attention-grabbing show car, or a sad compromise between good looks and practicality, think again: this SUV fulfils all the promise of the original, and then some. In fact, it will blow you away.

Having just returned from a technical briefing at Land Rover’s Warwickshire (UK) facility, we’re happy to confirm that the new Evoque is not only a spacious, comfortable and capable bundu-basher, but also an on-road performer of note. In fact, you can drive it like a hooligan and rest assured that the integrated technology will save you from yourself. An example: during a test drive, we passed over a bump in the road at a speed well in excess of the legal limit. In an “ordinary” car, our heads would probably have been squashed to shoulder level. In the extraordinary Evoque, equipped with damping technologies that appear to defy physical laws, our heads emerged unscathed.

Range Rover's Evoque takes to deep sand during hot-weather testing.
Note that the rather startling livery is designed to foil spy shots!
(Picture: Land Rover)

If you were concerned that the sloping roof would compromise rear-passenger space, you can relax: there's more than enough headroom at the back for normal-sized South Africans. Oh, and if you suspected that the smaller, more fuel-efficient diesel and petrol engines spelt lacklustre performance, you couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, they deliver enough grunt to bring tears to the eyes of red-blooded drivers everywhere.

* Read a full report on the Evoque in the June issue of Popular Mechanics.