The Freelander is dead. Meet its successor

For several decades the keys to a Land Rover carried certain expectations. On the one hand you knew you could scale Scarfell Pike on £5 of diesel (which, by rural law, seems to be the maximum allowed in an old Landie's tank) and your vehicle would outlast religion. On the other you'll be contorted into a resolutely Wartime driving position and unable to communicate with your passenger over the rattle of an Old Testament diesel engine, which seems to have been built chiefly to turn fuel into noise.

However, 17 years ago the Freelander lunged onto the launch pad, exfoliated and moisturised for the city. Hose-down interiors made way for ergonomics and haptic, sculpted surfaces while the mechanicals had (just) enough butch to earn the badge.

You'd never find one up to its wiperblades fording the Amazon, but that wasn't the point. It was a car designed for forays, not lifetimes off road.

And this is the latest version. Though you'll have probably noticed that it's actually called the Discovery Sport, but it fits into Jaguar Land Rover's line-up where the outgoing Freelander used to. To justify its Discovery appellation, which belongs to a far more capable off-roader, the company promises that it'll be able to heave itself up one-in-one slopes and wade through 600mm of water. You'll be able to bring your friends, too - there's an option of a seven-seat version, which falls 4cm shorter than the Audi Q5, but for more humble broods a five-seat model's available.

Elsewhere inside it's par for the course. Not outwardly luxurious (that's for the Evoque) nor self-consciously rugged (that's the Defender). Solid, not wow. It does get Jaguar Land Rover's all-new operating system and hardware, though, which is controlled through an eight-inch screen and gives you access to several new apps, though we're yet to see what they'll do and how they'll work.

As for the Sport badge, it appears to just about have that one covered with a 187bhp 2.2-litre turbodiesel engine (as you'd find in the Evoque) which is all that's available on launch. They'll be joined by selects from the firms curiously-named "Ingenium" range of engines (again, see the Evoque), with prices starting at a shade over £32,000.

Rather more then the Freelander. But that's what it costs to go from farmyard to Fulham.

From £32,000.

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