I bought this out of spite — and got more than I bargained for
When naturalist Chris Packham said something annoying on TV, I decided to annoy him back by buying a Range Rover with a V8 that produces more carbon dioxide than India.
For some time the dashboard of my girlfriend Lisa’s Range Rover has been lit up like a broken poker machine. So I started to think about replacing it with something else. Eventually I settled on a new Land Rover Defender with a smallish diesel engine, but then naturalist Chris Packham said something annoying on television, so I decided to annoy him back by cancelling the Defender and going instead for a Range Rover with a petrol-fed, 390kW V8 engine.
The leviathan arrived this morning and it’s comforting to know that by talking about the environment Packham has actually made it a little worse. Plus, I ended up with a Range Rover. Which, if I’m honest, is what I’d wanted all along.
I know the Defender is pretty cool, but if you buy one what you’re actually saying is “I can’t afford a Range Rover”. Nothing wrong with that of course. I couldn’t afford a Range Rover either. The prices have gone so berserk that you can now spend more than $385,000 on a top-of-the-range model. However, I could afford a slightly used Range Rover P530. So that’s what I bought. I’d like to say that buying it was easy. But it wasn’t, chiefly because in 2022 more than 5,000 people in the UK woke up to find their Range Rover had been nicked and shipped off to Albania. This sent insurance companies into a tizzy, and now getting cover is both expensive and tricky.
Obviously the solution would have been to choose something less popular in Albania. A Kia perhaps. But my hot internal walnut of spite was determined to punish Packham, so it had to be a Range Rover. With a V8 that produces more carbon dioxide than India. Even if it meant hiring a fully tooled-up former special forces soldier to guard it round the clock.
My brokers began by insisting the car was kept under lock and key in a garage. But we settled on it being behind electric gates. Which freed us up to start a new argument. The new-shape Range Rover is extremely difficult to steal. Millions have been spent on making it impregnable. I’m told only three have gone walkies since its launch. Despite this, the insurance boys demanded that, before they’d entertain the idea of providing cover, I would have to spend thousands on a second tracking device.
Then, when the car was delivered, I had to sit down with two men from the dealership to install an app on my phone. I entered my email address and chose a password. You know where this is going, and you’re right. The password was judged and came up wanting. So I chose the name of a Polish town, added some random punctuation marks, explained that I wasn’t a robot and then got a message saying they would email me the login details.
The email didn’t arrive, so I went back to the beginning, only to find that I couldn’t remember the name of the Polish town or where I’d put the punctuation marks. So one of the dealership men had to use his laptop, which meant he had to hook up to my wi-fi, and no, I’ve got more important things to remember than the password for that. Warmątowice Sienkiewiczowskie probably. With some colons.
Several shaves later, the app was installed. And it didn’t work, as the car had fallen asleep. It had previously been sitting at the dealership for a couple of weeks and had simply nodded off – it hadn’t even been woken up by its ride on the trailer to my place in Chipping Norton. Apparently this is a design feature, because when a Range Rover is just sitting there it’s constantly alert. It’s scanning itself for defects and movement and this means the battery goes flat. So it’s programmed to fall asleep if you go on holiday and don’t use it for a couple of weeks.
Could I use the app I’d spent four years installing to wake it up? No. So one of the dealership men took out his phone to show me the two things I would be able to do when it did wake up. First, I would be able to turn on the heater, something my 17-year-old Range Rover can do without a bloody app. And, second, I’d be able to unlock the doors even if the car is on the farm and I’m in Mexico City. I was reminded of the time a terrible and bombastic man explained to me that his London house was so high-tech that he could run a bath while he was in Los Angeles. Great. But why would you want to?
The dealership men saw my puzzled expression and explained why I might one day have to unlock the car from the other side of the Atlantic. It was something about someone wanting to retrieve a coat. I’m not sure that’ll ever happen. So I now have yet another app on my phone that took forever to install and that I will never use.
We then moved to the car itself and the men were very keen to demonstrate how, if you push one button on the key fob and then hold two more down simultaneously, the rear of the car will rise. “Ta-da,” they said. And nothing happened.
One of them realised that for this to happen, the ignition must be switched on. So he did that and ta-da – nothing happened again. It turned out the hazard warning lights must be on as well. Why? Absolutely no idea, I’m afraid.
We then began to go through the command-and-control systems. The men were very surprised to hear I would be using it off-road, so there were many features to learn about on that front. And then they explained I could use a camera that wasn’t there to make sure my dog wasn’t hiding under the wheels when I set off. Obviously to do all this the enormous V8 – which I’ve christened “the Packham” – had to be running, and that caused my hot walnut of spite to throb gently.
It also meant the car was awake and could talk to my app. But although it can do that, I can’t because I’ve already forgotten the password.
Lisa, however, is much better at getting her head round all of this electronic stuff, so I figured she’d pick it up in a flash. ’Fraid not. She went to drop some stuff off at the farm shop and stormed back in five minutes later demanding that I hand over the keys to the old Range Rover. “What’s the matter with the new one?” I asked.
“I can’t get the bloody thing in reverse,” she replied.
Range Rover P350
ENGINE: 4.4-litre V8 twin turbo
PERFORMANCE: 0-100km/h 4.8 seconds, top speed 240km/h
PRICE: 142,260 pounds
RATING: Four out of five stars
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