The gentle giant: Land Rover Discovery Sport

When I drove the Land Rover Discovery Sport’s higher specced variant that spews 190PS power, it reminded me of Erebus, a volcano in Antarctica. Covered in ice throughout the year, this one has been spitting fire for more than a million years. The Discovery Sport is something like the Erebus of SUVs. From the outside it has a calm demeanour. In fact, I might as well say that it enthralls you with its disarming appearance and beckons you to just step in and lounge around on those comfortable seats. This seven-seater has so much space that you can easily pull down the middle and the rear seats, throw in some cushions and simply doze off to catch a quick power nap. Or maybe, even invite your girl over for a quick session of discoveries and inventions! But then, as I am more into getting behind the wheel and pottering around with the car, I really didn’t end up doing anything that was mentioned in the last two sentences.

So now that we are clear on how comfortable the Discovery can be, let’s move ahead to find out what else this British behemoth is capable of. And for that I went on a short drive from Mumbai to Panchgani, via a dense jungle trail that went past Aamby Valley and joins the Western Ghats. Not just was this route full of twists and turns but I also managed to get lost on the way and ended up on off-road tracks that cut across meadows and made me climb hillocks. I love corners, especially those which just surprise you with their high degree of bend. At these hairpins, the Discovery Sport made me feel as if I was handling a vehicle with an extremely low centre of gravity, as there was literally no body roll that one associates with an SUV its size. It stayed planted on the track that I wanted to it stay on and there was minimal deviations even at hard corners. And when it came of going off the tarmac, it just didn’t feel as if the vehicle will restructure our internal organs as the suspension and all the electronics kicked in to make sure that the ride was as comfortable as possible. Overall I this the Discovery Sport is an ox in the garb of a sheep. It looks pleasantly plump from the outside but give it an offroading challenge and its beast of a heart rises to the occasion. But give it a smooth sailing tarmac and it gently ambles away without any huff and puff.

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From the September 2016 issue of FHM India.