On my recent tour of Scotland around the North Coast 500 (to be covered soon here on the blog) I was able to drive a new Land Rover Discovery. I'm not going to write a full review of this car as I'm not a motoring journalist and there are plenty of reports online on this car, most very complimentary about its on and off-road capabilities.
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| Driving up the sinuous Bealach na Ba in Applecross |
I drove some 2500 miles in the four weeks or so we had the car. From London we drove to Cumbria, then up to and around the northernmost coast of Scotland before returning to London via Cumbria. The journey saw every type of road you can imagine, from the crowded circular car park that is the M25 to the more open motorways of England and Scotland. Smaller roads varied from dual carriageway to tiny, twisting singletrack roads with passing places. Many of the latter were challenging driving; steep and tortuous, often poorly maintained with rocks at each verge and poor road surfaces. To park we often had to go briefly off-road into all types of terrain.
What impressed me about the Discovery is that it took everything in its stride, being equally at home as a fast and comfortable motorway cruiser as a car for driving round twisting, narrow, poorly maintained tracks.
The Discovery is a large car - I was concerned that this might be noticeable on the very narrow tracks of the more remote parts of the North Coast 500 - but this wasn't the case. A smaller person (my wife) might find they have to climb up to get in and to reach out to close the door, but the advantage for us was that we carried several weeks luggage and a large dog with room to spare. There is, of course, the smaller Discovery Sport for those looking for a smaller and highly capable all-round touring car.
The concept of the touring car (in the original sense of a car used for touring rather than a race car) may seem old-fashioned, but it comes into its own for long motoring holidays and trips abroad. The Discovery is the perfect touring car which would get you out of almost anything. Visit the Land Rover website for more information.
The car was kindly loaned to me (at my request) by Land Rover PR. They asked for nothing in return, for which I'm very grateful. I was genuinely impressed by the car, and all views here are my own. I was paid nothing for this feature.
