The Engineer Car Review: Range Rover P400e

Nobody could have predicted just how influential the Range Rover would go on to become when the original three-door model was launched in June 1970. It brought off-roaders out of the farmyard and onto the high street – paving the way for the hordes of SUVs and crossovers that now dominate the global car market.

Like many iconic cars, its shape was in fact penned by an engineer rather than a stylist. But that didn’t stop Spen King’s original concept being exhibited in the Louvre, alongside the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The fact the silhouette has changed so little in the intervening half a century is testament to its inherent rightness.

Under the skin, things have changed rather more radically. The current generation Range Rover was the first SUV in the world to feature an all-aluminium monocoque construction when it debuted in 2012. It was the most extensive finite element analysis project that Jaguar Land Rover had ever undertaken at the time – subject to a staggering 1,000 CPU years of processor time. The end result was a structure 39 per cent lighter than the steel equivalent, contributing to an overall weight saving of up to 420kg (depending on the market and specification).