2018 Range Rover Velar
When Jaguar entered the SUV world with the F-PACE, we raved about the excellence of their mostly ground up design. After all, they could have simply rebadged a ute from their cousin Land Rover. Now, as it turns out, it’s Land Rover doing some reverse engineering, with a new SUV based on the F-PACE, the Range Rover Velar.
If you’re not a Land Rover enthusiast, you might wonder where this 2018 Range Rover Velar fits in. Well, it’s a true midsize entry, slotting in between the larger Range Rover Sport and compact Evoque.
Engine choices are in step with the Jaguar F-Pace; 2.0-liter turbo-4s, one diesel one petrol, and a 3.0-liter supercharged V6 that rates 380-horsepower and 332 lb-ft. of torque. All work with a ZF 8-speed automatic transmission.
But lest you think this is simply old-school badge engineering, know that Land Rover engineers did indeed start with the bare bones of the F-Pace, including maintaining its 113–inch wheelbase. But from there, they created an all-new Range Rover.
And certainly a high-fashion one. With no obvious resemblance to the F-Pace; just plenty of styling cues from other Land Rovers; with a floating roof design, some snazzy fender trim, and pop out door handles thrown in for good measure. All standing on up to 22-inch wheels.
More emphasis was put on off-road performance as well. So, in addition to standard all-wheel-drive, the Velar is available with Terrain Response 2, and gets an electronic air suspension setup not obtainable on the F-Pace, at least for now anyway. And, it’s not just pretty, with a towing capacity of 5,500-lbs.
Admittedly, handling prowess has been lost in the process, as the Velar doesn’t feel quite as light on its feet as the F-Pace, but ride quality is truly sublime.
Dialing up Dynamic mode helps it feel it’s sportiest, and owners can dial in their own customized setup.
Maintaining their superior off-road image is vital to Land Rover, and the Velar is truly more capable than most will ever experience. It also feels rock solid with its aluminum monocoque chassis construction. There’s no ability to engage a low range; but the full suite of electronic aids specific for the trail, have the ability to send full power to whichever wheel is getting the most traction, getting you through just about anything you might encounter.
Of course you’re well-swaddled in Range Rover luxury while doing that, including numerous leather packages, and supremely comfortable seats. It’s a gorgeous look.
This is certainly not your father’s Land Rover, unless he had his own proprietary touch panel control system installed. Here it’s Land Rover’s new InControl Touch Pro Duo with twin 10-inch capacitive touchscreens.
With few traditional physical controls, it can be intimidating when you first hop in, but it’s a mostly-logical setup that doesn’t take too long to get comfortable with.
Rear seat passengers don’t miss out on the luxury treatment either, and space is among best in class.
As is cargo room, 34.4 cubic-ft. behind the 2nd row, 70.1 with the 40/20/40 split seatbacks folded flat.
All of that makes this Range Rover as functional as it is beautiful.
As for track work, our supercharged V6 Velar hopped off the line eagerly with good all-wheel-drive grip. The rear really squats down as you take off, hitting 60 in 5.5-seconds.
And right away, you realize Jaguar kept all of the cool exhaust notes for themselves, as here you just get some droning engine noise. Shifts are quick and smooth however, taking you through the ¼-mile in 14.0-seconds flat at a nice even 100 miles-per-hour.
It was a difficult task determining what exactly its capabilities are in the handling department. The chassis feels proficient enough, but as soon as there’s even a hint of understeer, the “safety at all costs” computer initiates “priority slow down procedures” and starts triggering the brakes.
It does exhibit only minor body roll throughout the cones however, with medium to light steering.
And just 102-feet is all it took to bring this thing to a halt from 60. Some nose dive is to be expected bringing 4,471-lbs. to a complete stop that quickly, but even that was relatively minor.
Government Fuel Economy Ratings for the V6 are 18-City, 24-Highway, and 20-Combined. We averaged a fine 21.7 miles-per-gallon on the required Premium. That makes for an Energy Impact Score slightly below the average for all cars, with annual oil consumption of 16.5-barrels and CO2 emissions of 7.3 tons.
A wide range for this Rover has prices starting at just $50,895, and stretching to at least $78,095 for an R-Dynamic HSE V6; our tester was closer to $90,000. Yikes!
Still, if you’re like us, your first response to the middle-weight 2018 Range Rover Velar may be “just what we needed, another luxury SUV”. But, Land Rover has been building posh off-roaders for longer than anybody, so it’s always good to see what they’re up to next. Now it’s up to the rest of the segment to see if they can keep up with the Velar.
Specifications
- Engine: 3.0 liter
- Horsepower: 380
- Torque: 332 lb-ft.
- 0-60 mph: 5.5 seconds
- 1/4 mile: 14.0 seconds @100 mph
- EPA: 18 mpg city / 24 mpg highway,
- Energy Impact: 16.5 barrels of oil/yr
- CO2 Emissions: 7.3 tons/yr
2025 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque
Baby Rover Continues To Evolve
When most people hear “Range Rover” they tend to think of high class, high performance and high dollars. But, Range Rover does the entry-level thing quite well too with this Evoque. It has plenty of posh attitude, along with some recent updates. So, let’s see how the Evoque continues to evolved.
Our involvement with the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque’s evolution began when this small utility first arrived for 2012. It looked more Spice Girl than Tough Mudder, but it packed a surprising amount of capability into its subcompact dimensions. This second gen arrived for 2020, and has gained recent updates at the most likely midway point in its lifecycle.
Intrigued but not necessarily enthused could probably best describe our history with the Evoque, but Land Rover always has a way of drawing us in with very tasteful designs. They pretty much got this one right back in 2020, so styling revisions are largely limited to new Pixel LED headlights and a reshaped front fascia. There’s also new super-red signature lighting in back, all of it done to bring the Evoque more in line with the rest of the Range Rover family.
And like all of its siblings, all-wheel drive is standard and it does have Terrain Response 2 with specific off-road modes, but no one’s expecting to see a lot of Evoques out on the trail, unless there’s a new Lululemon Outlet at the other end of it having a killer sale.
Land Rover has once again taken the P300 296-horsepower version of the Evoque’s 2.0-liter turbo-four out of the lineup, leaving just the standard 249-horsepower version under the clamshell hood. No complaints from us, its 269 lb-ft of torque is more than adequate to move this 3,900 lb. ute around.
And at Mason Dixon Dragway, it moved us to 60 mph in 7.7 seconds. There was plenty of traction off the line, and while not overwhelming, power feels plentiful, staying very consistent down the track. Gearchanges in the Evoque’s nine-speed automatic transmission were quick and smooth, barely a blip in the process as we finished the quarter-mile in 16 seconds flat at 85 mph. Plenty quick for a compact utility with luxury intentions.
[It maneuvered] with a substantial presence that not too many small utilities have.
It felt quite good through our handling course too, with a substantial presence that not too many small utilities have. The Evoque uses selective braking to torque vector power between all four wheels, and it enabled us to cruise through the cones quickly without any excessive understeer or oversteer. There was some nosedive during our panic braking test, but the brakes were very responsive and strong enough to bring us to a halt in a short 115 feet from 60.
But, it’s the inside experience that really matters with any luxury vehicle, particularly in a Range Rover. And here things look more high-end Swedish than Tudor or Victorian, with a minimalist cabin design that’s way more visually appealing than practical. There’s real leather covering just about everything, and what appears to be just a tablet stuck in front of the dash is a new 11.4-inch touchscreen. Not only are the inner workings much faster than the previous infotainment setup, but the entire interface of this Pivi Pro system is vastly better than the split screen approach of before.
The center console that leads up to it appears much less cluttered and frees up some additional space for storage. The shifter is still here, but it has gotten much smaller. Front seat space and comfort remain high, though rear seat room is still very tight for adults. Cargo space is not bad for a small utility, with room for 21.6 cu-ft. of gear in the hold, which expands with 40/20/40 split-folding seatback flexibility to 50.5 cu-ft.
Government Fuel Economy Ratings are 20 City, 27 Highway, and 22 Combined. That’s an average Energy Impact Score, using 13.5 barrels of oil annually, with CO2 emissions of 6.6 tons.
Land Rover has been paring things down in the Evoque lineup for years, no longer offering a two-door version or the convertible, and now have simplified things even further to just the P250 available in only two trims: S, which stickers for $51,175, and Dynamic SE, which starts at $56,375; but you can add just about every package available and still come in right around $60,000.
Luxury-minded utility vehicles are coming at us from all angles these days, but the 2025 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque is a bit unique in that it remains as sort of a cheat code for sneaking you into the Range Rover VIP experience. You’ll feel like you’re getting away with something every time you drive it.
Specifications
As Tested
- Engine: 2.0-liter turbo-four
- Transmission: 9-speed automatic
- Horsepower: 249
- Torque: 269 lb-ft
- 0-60 mph: 7.7 seconds
- 1/4 Mile: 16 seconds at 85 mph
- Braking, 60-0 (avg): 115 feet
- EPA: 20 City | 27 Highway | 22 Combined
2025 McLaren Artura Spider
McLaren Rips The Roof Off The Artura And Blows The Doors Off The Competition
McLaren has a long history of racetrack success, but in a relatively short period of time, McLaren has also gone from a niche street car maker to a major player in the supercar segment. Their next step is this Artura, the brand’s next-gen high performance hybrid supercar!
This is the McLaren Artura, truly the next step for this British brand that’s all about the performance, as it is literally all they do. More specifically, it’s the 2025 Artura Spider, the retractable hardtop version of the mid-engine plug-in high-performance coupe that arrived 2 years ago. But, in addition to being the brand’s first high-performance hybrid convertible, it brings a host of performance-related updates, most of which get applied to the Artura Coupe as well.
More power is usually our favorite update, so we’ll start there. The Artura mates a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 gas engine with a 70-kW electric motor. The total output is 690-horsepower, which is up 19 from when the Artura debuted. But unlike some high-performance hybrids that use electric motors to power the front wheels, McLaren’s electric motor is tucked in the same housing as the eight-speed dual-clutch transmission, sending the total 531 lb-ft of torque strictly to the rear wheels. A 7.4-kWh battery enables up to 11 miles of EV driving, same as in the coupe; and with no reverse gear in the transmission, the battery powers all backups.
That transmission is recalibrated too, providing gear changes 25% quicker than before. McLaren claims it all works together to deliver a 0-60 time of 3.0 seconds flat, also same as the coupe, as the power folding hardtop assembly only adds about 100-lbs. of weight.
Lightweight performance is one British tradition we can get behind and taking in some laps during January at Roebling Road Raceway near Savannah, Georgia is a MotorWeek tradition that lives on. Unfortunately, we were joined by some very untraditional snowy weather this year, which limited our track days.
The Artura just grips, rips, and urges you to push on harder.
But it didn’t take many laps for us to get comfortable in the Artura. We’re not race car drivers, but we do play them on T.V., and in a car that feels this compact and literally wrapped around you, when you reach that point in most cars where you sense an urgent need to back it down, the Artura just grips, rips, and urges you to push on harder. The throttle response is as immediate as it gets, the engine loves to rev, and with the optional Sport Exhaust, it sounds fantastic while delivering the mind-melting performance.
Driver engagement aspects of the car get upgraded too, courtesy of stiffer powertrain mounts and heightened response from the Proactive Damping Control suspension system. There are multiple levels of stability control intervention including full off, as well as Variable Drift Control, which lets you have some sideways fun without worrying about balling up your crazy-expensive supercar. Lightness doesn’t mean a lack of stability here, but it surely helps with braking performance, as it is borderline otherworldly when the forged aluminum calipers clamp down hard on the carbon ceramic discs, making you feel like a hero with your late braking shenanigans.
But ultimately, it was the snow that brought us to a full stop, which allowed us extra time to take in the Artura Spider’s gorgeous lines. Body panels are so tight, it looks like there’s one piece of Ventura Orange shrink-wrap holding it all together. McLaren does everything fast, and that includes folding the hardtop, which happens in just 11 seconds.
While unique, there are familiar elements to the interior, but the Artura’s evolution has created a more cohesive design. And much like the outside, it’s very fluid-like in the way panels and components flow into one another. Being a Plug-in Hybrid the Artura Spider has Government Fuel Economy Ratings of 45 Combined MPGe and 19 Combined strictly with the gas engine.
And after singing all of that praise, we now get to pricing and inform you that the Artura remains McLaren’s entry-level model, with the Spider starting at just $278,800, about 25-grand more than the Coupe.
With the 2025 Artura Spider, McLaren has done much more than just incorporate a removable roof into their next-gen hybrid supercar. They used it as an excuse to complete a system wide upgrade, essentially creating Artura 2.0. It’s also their best car yet, seamlessly integrating electric power into a fantastic open-air driving experience and pointing to more great things to come from McLaren.
Specifications
As Tested
- Engine: 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6
- Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch
- Horsepower: 690
- Torque: 531 lb-ft