Land Rover announces the all new Range Rover

Land Rover has lifted the lid on its all new Range Rover. British designed and engineered, it will be manufactured in a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Solihull.

Now in its fourth generation, this latest version is said to be the most capable and luxurious Land Rover yet, with a revolutionary lightweight all-aluminium monocoque body structure. This 39% lighter body and other measures means that the Range Rover has been on a significant weight saving exercise – shedding around 420kg in total. This delivers significant fuel economy and CO2 emissions improvements, as well as enhancements in agility and performance.

In addition to the strong and rigid lightweight body, an all-new aluminium front and rear chassis architecture has been developed with completely re-engineered four-corner air suspension. The new suspension architecture delivers flatter, more confident cornering, with natural and intuitive steering feel.

John Edwards, Land Rover Global Brand Director, said: “The new Range Rover preserves the essential, unique character of the vehicle – that special blend of luxury, performance and unmatched all-terrain capability.  However, its clean sheet design and revolutionary lightweight construction have enabled us to transform the experience for luxury vehicle customers, with a step change in comfort, refinement and handling.”

Still unmistakably a Range Rover, the new model design is an evolution over what has come before, as these official pictures show.

“Designing the next generation Range Rover, following over forty years of success, came with a huge responsibility to protect the DNA of such an icon,” said Gerry McGovern, Land Rover Design Director and Chief Creative Officer.

“Our design team worked incredibly hard to capture the elegant proportions and pure surfaces which have been a feature of the best Range Rover designs.”

Also new on the model is the latest version of the company’s Terrain Response system, which analyses the current driving conditions and automatically selects the most suitable vehicle settings for the terrain. While power comes from a choice of a refined supercharged V8 petrol engine, TDV6 and TDV8 diesel engines, and while fuel economy and CO2 emissions figures have yet to be released, expect big improvements over the third generation model.

Available to order from September 2012 the first customer deliveries are scheduled to start in early 2013.