2017 Land Rover Discovery new car review

The pretty yet ponderous nose of the hulking new Land Rover Discovery is pointing straight up at the sky, looking more like a rocket on a launch pad than what it is; a giant Louis Vuitton bag with a two-tonne Swiss Army knife secreted inside.

Trapped in this perilously poised Disco are two terrified Italian journalists, who've paused, unwisely, half way up a boulder and now look certain to slide ignominiously backwards and crash.

Everything about their situation looks illogical, even impossible, but such is the capability hidden under the shiny shell and luxe interior of this seven-seat behemoth that somehow - with the help of some serious Scottish men shouting and the Italians waving their arms - it climbs its way up the near vertical precipice to safety.

The next day it's our turn to feel the fear as we point the nose of the Discovery down a sand cliff that would break your neck if you attempted it on foot. Somehow, this vastly capacious, 5m long and 1.8m-high SUV creeps its way down without smashing its face in, then powers up another dune, happily power-sliding sideways.

Two days, and 600km of driving through the wind-carved stone cathedrals of Utah and Arizona throws various challenges at the new, and very important, Land Rover, and not only does it smash through all of them with ease, it does it all while you sit in a cabin that's as quiet, comfortable and filled with modern appointments (35 exclusive InControl apps, including one that allows you to configure the seats remotely "from anywhere in the world", nine USB ports, six 12V chargers,  the ability to stream from your device to the headrest screens, storage for four iPads between the front seats) as you'd expect a Range Rover to be.

The sense of luxury, particularly as you're cruising smoothly along sealed roads, gives no sense of just how much off-road ability lurks beneath, most of which will never be explored, or appreciated, by its owners, more than 20,000 of whom have already lined up globally - and more than 400 locally - to buy one without even seeing it in the metal.

They might want to take a closer look before handing over their cash though, because, while there's no doubt you're getting a lot of car for your money - pricing starts at a showroom-bait $65,960 (you could literally spend twice as much on extra goodies, with the First Edition costing $132,560) it's the very size, and the insistence on being able to sit seven "actual adults" in comfort (the third row is a $3400 option), that causes some problems.

No one likes to use unflattering terms like "Sssangyong", "Stavic" or "the Hunchback of the Midlands", but there's no denying the rear of the Discovery presents some visual challenges. From front on, it's far and away the most beautiful design this legendary vehicle has boasted in its square and awkward 27-year history, but the rear three-quarter look has something of a broken bird's wing about it.

The pay-off is that, while just about everyone else lies when they claim it, the Discovery genuinely does fit seven adults in comfort; although the company's suggestion that "every seat is the best seat in the house" is almost Trumpian.

Headroom, legroom and bum-support are all in new territory for third-row passengers, but you have to wonder how often people actually move seven full-size humans around, particularly when doing so entirely vaporises the boot space, which is admittedly vast when you're not doing so (1231 litres, or a whopping 2500 litres with both rear rows stowed). Designing in the availability of that headroom, which is also forced upon five-seat buyers, has come at such a visual cost.

The driver's seat, clearly, is the one you'd want to be in, and we were very curious what it would feel like with what seems like, on paper,  an absurd engine choice beneath the bonnet.

Land Rover's weight-saving efforts, highlighted by a body in white that's 85 per cent light-weight aluminium (and yet still delivers the most torsionally stiff Discovery ever), have allowed the company to achieved a 20 per cent weight reduction, down to 2080kg, and allowed it to downsize its powerplants.

This means you can now have one of its giant SUVs with a four-cylinder engine.

This seems as absurd as lighting the SCG at night with candles, and it may well be the case when it comes to the base model's 2.0-litre Ingenium Td4 diesel engine, which offers just 132kW and  430Nm, but does achieve a claimed economy of 6.3l/100km.

In the smallest surprise ever, this model wasn't available to drive at the global launch.

Happily, though, the twin-turbo diesel Sd4 (starting at $71,560) we did try, with 177kW and 500Nm, turns out to be more than capable enough for those who will use this luxo-bus almost entirely as a city commuter and school-run shuttle.

Off the line, it provides an encouraging pat on the back on its way to 100km/h in 8.3 seconds (a full 2.2 seconds faster than the Td4), and it will sit comfortably at highway cruising speeds.

Put your foot flat to overtake - or climb a boulder - however, and there's a bit of a torque hole to be driven around, but in fairness it's almost twice as good as anyone has any right to expect it to be.

The more sensible, more expensive choice ($78,560 in the lowest spec) is the new 3.0-litre TdV6, with 190kW and 600Nm and an economy figure of just 7.2 litres per 100km, which makes easy work of highway overtaking or mud-plugging.

Its power is ample, without being exciting, and, as in the four-cylinder, the soundproofing of the cabin is so good that you rarely hear it doing its work. Happily, the kind of diesel rattle you got in Discos of old is never an issue.

Speaking of refinement, the ride quality is also excellent, although with the air suspension - standard on all but the entry-level model - there is a slight floatiness to the experience, as if you are gracing the road with your presence rather than actually driving on it.

It's a similar story with the steering, which isn't over-endowed with weight or feel but is gracefully easy to use.

The overall effect is of being captain of a ship, with your crew of six behind you, cruising the roads, while the mere prawns in their tiny cars swim around you.

There's nothing exciting about driving a Discovery - unless you're climbing cliffs or fording rivers, which you can now do at depths of up to 900mm -  but there is much that is pleasant about it. Effortless is the word that probably best describes it, which is impressive for such a large vehicle.

You can go around corners quickly, if you so desire, but the fact that you are sitting so far above any given apex means this will be slightly disconcerting, and will involve giving your passengers enough of a shake-up that they may even look up from their iPads.

What Land Rover has done with its new Discovery is to keep its core customers happy; those people who wanted the class and quality to feel and look more like a Range Rover, and its hard-core customers as well; those who want to drive into volcanos or up mountains.

What the new entry-level models, with their city-friendly, economical four-cylinder engines also allows the company to do is target an all-new and burgeoning market; the city-dweller who wants a big SUV, no matter how impractical it may be for the tight suburban streets where they live, and who give not a fig about its versatility, except when it comes to bragging about what it could do at a BBQ.

They're the customers who won't be shelling out the $2060 extra for the optional Terrain Response 2, which is so clever - sensing the terrain and grip levels 100 times a second and adjusting automatically - it makes doing the extreme seem almost mundane. Even without it, the Discovery, which goes on sale locally in July, would still be hugely capable.

And everyone wants a Swiss Army knife, of course, even if they never use the wood saw or the fish scaler in their lives.