When you head to a car dealership, there are some basic norms that help steer buyers to the right vehicle for them, even if said buyer isn’t exactly an automotive expert. One of these tenets is the model year of the vehicles. If you want the newest SUV available today, you’ll buy the 2022. If you are bargain hunting, a tough prospect these days, and fine driving around in last year’s design, you’ll buy the 2021. Easy peasy.
Except this year, Land Rover is making things a little more opaque. Alongside last month’s reveal of the new Range Rover, the fifth generation of the automaker’s highly successful flagship SUV, the company also made this announcement: the older generation Range Rover will be sold alongside the new one, both under model year 2022.
That’s right, when the new Range Rover goes on sale in spring of 2022, your local dealer may have two different 2022 models on the lot. As Car and Driver noted, this will only be the case until inventory runs out on the fourth-generation SUV. And while we hardly believe dealers will try and hoodwink people into paying fifth-generation prices for a fourth-generation model, this unique case does make it worth revisiting the most significant differences between the two.
After all, we haven’t met a Range Rover we didn’t like yet, but this may not be a case of newer always being better for your personal purposes.
Range Rover’s Engine Options
As we noted in our luxury SUV buying guide, the fourth-generation Range Rover “chooses outright brawn over genteel sophistication with its available 518-horsepower supercharged V8 standing alone against a sea of continental turbocharged foes.” Those foes now include the fifth-generation Range Rover. The new model will launch with a turbocharged inline-six paired to a mild hybrid system (395 hp) and a twin-turbocharged V8 (523 hp), with no supercharged option available. In 2023, the new Range Rover will include a plug-in hybrid option, and an all-electric model is due out in 2024. If you want to experience that supercharged V8, you’ll have to stick with the earlier edition.
The Pros and Cons of the Interior
From one cabin to the other, the normal driver may not be able to point out that many differences between the two Range Rovers. When it comes to this king of SUVs in the SUV age, Land Rover isn’t going to compromise in terms of comfort or amenities. But once you spend significant mileage behind the wheel, the differences will stick out, like the gear selector which has gone from a rotary wheel to a more tactile design that protrudes from the center console. As for the infotainment, there’s more Tesla in the new design, as it features the largest-ever touchscreen, a 13.1-inch floating tablet that offers a “smartphone-inspired interface.” If you’re not quite ready for your car to act like your phone, stick with the older model.
The More the Merrier
For the fifth-generation, the Range Rover uses a new MLA-Flex body architecture. There’s a lot that could be said about this massive engineering upgrade, but for you, someone who wants to get from point A to B with all your passengers and stuff, the key difference here is that you can now get a three-row Range Rover. The architecture allows for both Standard and Long Wheelbase configurations, the latter offering an optional third row and seating up to seven people, whereas the fourth-generation is a two-row, five-passenger affair.
There’s plenty more to be said about the new Range Rover, from the exterior design (which moves even further away from its boxy origins) to the sound tech that hopes to offer the quietest ride yet. But we think the power, the interface and the space are good barometers for most people to start with. Oh, and the new one will start at $105,350 compared to the last generation’s $93,350 — though at this price point, you’ll probably dip into the options and push that up no matter which you decide on.
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