New York: Land Rover on journey of Discovery

LAND Rover is getting set to provide a look into the future of its Discovery SUV line that will morph into a family of vehicles incorporating the next-generation Freelander due next year.

The Discovery Vision Concept vehicle will be revealed in full at the New York motor show on April 16 when the British company is expected to spell out further details of the new Discovery sub-brand that marks a fundamental change to the British SUV-maker’s model line-up.

A teaser video released with today’s announcement of the concept shows a sketch of a vehicle with more aerodynamic styling, including a laid-back windscreen and sleeker nose, but retaining the roofline ‘kick’ familiar to all Discovery fans.

The interior shots reveal a high-class treatment with simple but stylish controls and flexible folding seats.

The outline sketch of the concept appears at the end of the video on the car’s dash-mounted touchscreen.

Land Rover design director and chief creative officer Gerry McGovern was quoted as saying the Discovery had been pivotal in helping to build the foundations of the Land Rover brand.

“It is admired all over the world and loved by its strong customer base,” he said. “We have created the Vision Concept to share the essence of Land Rover’s new age of Discovery and to debut a new, compelling, relevant design direction that connects on an emotional level with customers of today and tomorrow.”

In the same way that Range Rover has been parlayed from one vehicle to a range of luxury SUVs – including Range Rover Sport and Evoque – the Discovery nameplate will be to applied to the middle ranking “leisure” models covering the next, fifth-generation Discovery large SUV, the smaller Freelander and perhaps others.

The Freelander is likely to be the first model to embrace the new styling when the new model arrives in 2015, with the full-sized vehicle set to follow.

The announcement of the new family look for Discovery 5 and its namesakes coincides with the 25th anniversary of the release of ‘Disco 1’.

As the current Discovery 4 was facelifted only late last year, the all-new model is expected to be at least a couple of years away.

Along with Range Rover and Discovery, the new Defender will make up the three families of Land Rover products into the future.