Range Rover - the Double Bay tractor - still has its place

WHEN we announced the Porsche Macan as one of our best cars of 2014 we were asked how we could have ignored the Range Rover.

2014 Range Rover Sport SVR.

WHEN we announced the Porsche Macan as one of The Weekend Australian’s best cars of 2014 there was a tsunami of emails from readers in Hawthorn, Mosman, Hamilton and Peppermint Grove asking how we could have ignored that favoured Double Bay tractor, the Range Rover.

We said: “The Porsche Macan S ($100,000) is the answer to the perennial South Yarra cowboy/girl dilemma. You want an SUV that fits Luca, Jayden and Willow and their ski gear, but you don’t want to look like just another private-school bus driver. The Macan is a Cayenne that’s shrunk in the German wash. It can actually go off piste, handles like a dream and has the right badge on the bonnet.”

Malcolm T from Bellevue Hill wrote: “How could you ignore that peerless epitome of British style the Range Rover? Even the Queen herself drives one.”

Well Malcolm, Betty Windsor is actually something of a petrol head. She has around 14 cars including two Bentleys, three Rollers, three Daimlers, some VWs, Range Rovers, Land Rovers and is qualified to work on truck engines. As she often used to say “the aristocracy buy Daimlers, the nouveau riche buy Rolls-Royce”.

Delicious as it is to contemplate Betty having stuck with traditional British marques, Bentley and Rolls-Royce are of course owned by the Germans, Daimler and Range Rover by the Indians.

Interestingly, early last year she sold one of her Land Rover Discoverys after someone (no finger pointing at Harry) rolled it on the farm. After a rebuild it sold for nearly $60,000 (you can pick up one from a non-royal locally for $10,000). In a weird coincidence the very first Range Rover also sold last year for $250,000 ($3000 for a non-first produced locally).

Before you rush out and spend your Xmas money on an early Range Rover, read the Dog and Lemon Guide. In a quick summary editor Clive Matthew-Wilson says the SUV is “as solid and British as a manor house and just as expensive to maintain ... It used to be said that there were only two man-made structures visible from space, the Great Wall of China and the gaps between the panels on a Range Rover. A politician is dependable compared to the average Range Rover.”

But the early Range Rovers were true workhorses. They came with vinyl seats, rubber mats and a plastic dashboard, so after a big day at Cirencester Park Polo Club and an even bigger afternoon at the Thatched Bar you could just hose the thing out. My pseudo pom friends drive early RRs but have cunningly substituted a Holden V8 and running gear under the bonnet. Don’t forget we did assemble RRs here in Australia until the government put high tariffs on imported vehicle parts.

These days the colonials have struck back. Range Rover is owned by Tata and quality and performance are about one million times better that when our former masters owned it. Take the new Range Rover SVR. The original 3.5 litre V8 RR had 100kW. The supercharged 5 litre V8 SVR has 405kW. The subcontinental fellows took one around the Nurburgring in what they claimed was the quickest time for an SUV. Clearly Porsche had a few words to them because Mr Tata changed the claim to read one of the fastest SUVs.

All this makes no difference to what you should buy. Cars are an emotional purchase, particularly when you are paying the extraordinary amounts we do for luxury cars in Australia. A Hyundai Sante Fe would do the trick for a third the price; a Mazda BT 50 does do the job with more room and super performance for half the price. But I get it. If you live in a conservative suburb with kids at a private school you need a Range Rover. For everyone else a Macan is the winner.

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