The vehicle we chose to look at is a 2020 Range Rover P525 HSE in short-wheelbase form, loaded up to the brim with nearly every option in the book. This means 22-way massaging seats with heated and ventilated functions, winged headrests, and a potent 5.0-liter supercharged V8 engine that allowed us to overtake, overcome, and turn our five-hour journey into four-and-a-half. All it was missing was a center cooler box to keep our drinks cold, and for that Gibeau Orange Julep. The adept all-wheel-drive system and flurry of off-road modes also gave us enough confidence to traverse any kind of snowy, slushy terrain, though we were fortunate enough not to encounter any.
The seats are fantastic. Well bolstered, and situated high up, they can give you a commanding view of the road ahead, clearly one of the biggest advantages of this full-size Rover. You become king of the highway. Those flat door sills also act as throne-like armrests too, along with the center fold-down armrest as they have on minivans, doing their best to mimic your living room couch. Land Rover has also listened to customer feedback and has upgraded the massaging seats. Before they were more of slight inflation and deflation of the bolsters – most of the time you forget they were even there. But now it’s a full-on kneading massage that you can actually feel through your spine. There are a few different massage modes to choose from too, each of them potent enough to prevent deep vein thrombosis – okay maybe an exaggeration. Still, you can set the system to automatically turn on within five-minute intervals of vehicle ignition as well – talk about the first-class service.
Now onto some ergonomic quibbles. The Range Rover adopts all those capacitive-touch glossy buttons from the Velar, which are integrated into the steering wheel, memory seat buttons, and door mirror buttons. They are fancy, sleek, and definitely more modern looking, but they no longer have grooves for me to feel where the buttons are. That means every time I want to change the song, I have to take my eyes off the road and look. That goes for the new dual 10-inch touchscreens as well. They do leave a physical volume and temperature dial (when clicked, it also commands the heated and massage seats) though, so there’s that. The head-up display was large and displayed crisp graphics too, making it easy to follow navigation prompts. Voice command further remedies these complaints.
The full-size Rover with the V8 is a proud and effective partner, and it’s going to be hard to top. Sure the turbodiesel would have been the better option, but the V8 offers limitless torque and enough horsepower to pass every speed limit in the country without breaking a sweat. Furthermore, the cosseting massage seats, excessive cargo space, and commanding driving position, make this Range Rover the ideal chariot for long-distance adventures.
