I am one strong believer in nothing but the good vibes. The perception about Friday the 13TH being jinxed does not apply to me. Surely… What is jinxed about spending half a day driving & being driven in Land Rovers & Range Rovers or better yet, the RANGE ROVER VELAR and the ALL NEW DISCOVERY!!
Jaguar Land Rover, through their authorized dealers RMA Motors once in a while invite people to ride and drive a couple models and have a glimpse of what being in a Jag or a Rangie feels like. My last experience was all off-roady and hill-descent-controlly and jumpy-jumpy.
Heavy rains that happened the night before was enough to make me contemplate on how muddy and slippery the obstacle course would be. I WAS SO PUMPED for an off-road experience in a Velar! I. Was. Wrong!
We were taken to the road! See what happens in these experiences (Ok… the ones I have been to) is that you take two trips, one where you drive then ride on the other.
The Convoy
Range Rover Vogue TDV6, the Range Rover Sport, the Range Rover Evoque, the Land Rover Discovery Sport, the icing on the cake the Range Rover Velar and the All New Land Rover Discovery.
The Drive: The All New Discovery
Something about driving the Discovery 4 that needed closure, I felt like I was left high and dry. I needed to set the record straight on whether the Disco is actually a thing. Closure was written all over the All New Discovery. “Can we call it the Discovery 5?” I asked one of the trainers, but he said we can’t, so yeah… All New Discovery.
The exterior didn’t give me closure though, it felt so meeh! Smoothening the corners and having it all curved out on the edges was a bad idea!
I had seen pictures of the car before but looking at the back made me ask “Sasa wamefanya nini hapa?!” (What have they done here?!)
IT ALL LOOKS CROOKED! I am stuck on the Disco 4 for sure!
The closure I needed (however petty) was whether I could not necessarily take a Discovery off-road but still have it work just fine on road. So we left the EAMSC onto Ngong’ Road and the traffic was such a bummer!
What the All New Disco has in common with the Velar is the 3 litre V6 Supercharged engine. Depending on whether you’re a fan of the P or the D, the car comes in both Petrol and Diesel variants.
Toyota mentality will make you think of The New Fortuner in respect to the shape. Someone on my Twitter even called it “An overpriced Fortuner!”
The All New Disco actually feels a lot more heavier on the road. I got pissed for not being able to use the Terrain Response 2 feature, because why?? The choice of circuit.
The Ride: The Range Rover Velar
The fanboy excitoz in me could not let me drive it. I like to just watch from the backseat in such situations. I even zoned out during the briefing looking at the LED lights doing some abra-cadabra magic… LOL!
A look around the interior of the Velar P380 and you’ll feel like you deserve to hear your name come with a “Sir” right before it.
The stitching, the surfaces that lowkey look like they are asking to be caressed nice and slow, the union jack patterns, the blacks on the whites, THE SCREENS that attract your fingers enough to smudge it with prints all over, The Alcantara (it’s Alston).
The model on display that day was the Range Rover Velar P380 HSE, a 3 litre V6 Supercharged engine under the hood with 380 HP, 450 Nm of torque “If you guys don’t know what that means, it means A LOT!” the trainer mentioned during the briefing session. A mix of black and white both exterior and interior. Lakini a white interior like that will make you set up car rules like the ones you hear at Koroga Festival “Meals and drinks from outside are NOT ALLOWED!”
On open road, the car picks up pretty fast, at some point the supercharger sound checked in and my mind got scattered!!!
The only significant thing the slow moving traffic was good for was letting you play around with the twin screens, take pictures, test the touch menu on the steering wheel and waving at people drooling at the car.
I had a car-nversation (can we make this a word?) with George from RMA about the Velar and it went south when I said “Alcantara” , forgot which month we were in and brought up my birthday month instead (maybe I was dropping hints to RMA Group that I wouldn’t mind a Velar for my birthday.)
You can check it out here…
Is Range Rover Velar the Porsche Macan killer?
Now let’s hope and pray for an SVR edition of the Velar because The Goat (SVO’s edition of the All New Discovery) has a 525PS 5 litre Supercharged V8 Petrol powertrain.
Massive appreciation to RMA Kenya for the invite. I also wouldn’t mind an extended test drive but hey… that’s just me thinking out loud.
Quick one though, which one’s your fave?
Thank you for stopping by… 👊
Velar man. Velar of course. I do not mind the skewed ass of the all new discovery but Velar’s is symmetrical (Atleast I got something out of that maths Class).
I so envy you. This is the kind of car I ogle at. Shamelessly
I see you! The Velar is so GOALS!!! My OCDness does not agree with that tailgate. Thanks for stopping by 🙌
Yep, Velar for sure. I’m a stickler for symmetry and rear end bothers me!
Velar it is! Symmetry and OCD go hand in hand 😂