Land Rover Discovery: A brief history
Since the late 1980s the Land Rover Discovery has been one of the leaders of the SUV market, combining rugged good looks and road presence with the added bonus of being slightly scaled down for everyday urban use. The company wanted to create a vehicle that had all the quality of the usual Range Rover designs that was also affordable to customers looking for a quality SUV. Here we take a look at the four different generations of the vehicle to see how it’s evolved over the past twenty years.
Discovery
The original Discovery was rolled out for the first time in the UK back in 1989 and immediately had a big impact within the off-road market. The chassis and drivetrain was based upon the more expensive Range Rover components, giving it solid foundations on which to add to the rest of the design of the car. The first generation Discovery was the first and only model to feature four-cylinder engines, and there was also a three-door version available when it was first released.
Discovery 2
In 1994, five years after the release of the original, Land Rover released the Discovery 2 – completely overhauling the design in the process. The new model came with a 2.5-litre 300Tdi Rover V8 engine and also featured a Bosch electronic emissions control system as manufacturers started to think slightly more about the environment. Land Rover said at the time that there were a total of 720 different changes between the first and second versions of the Discovery – a few too many to list here – but the overall look and feel of the car, as well as improved handling and performance were certainly the two most important.
Discovery 3
In 2004, a full ten years after the original release of the Discovery 2, the third model was released to great fanfare. The Discovery 3 actually took its design inspiration from the very first, late 80s model, but had a massively updated interior and a much higher level of comfort and practicality. The engines for the new car were taken from Land Rover’s sister company Jaguar, with both high-spec petrol and diesel options available, as well as brand new gear boxes across all versions.
Discovery 4
The first version of the Land Rover Discovery 4 was released in 2009 and featured a ZF 6-speed transmission, a 5.0 L Jaguar V8 engine and daytime running lights that detect the level of lighting and determine how powerful the headlights should be. Clever stuff. The Land Rover Discovery 4 also continued the trend of having body-coloured wheels and, for the 2011 edition, two versions of the slick 3.0-litre engine – the powerful TDV6 and the SDV6.
About the author: Sergio Braston is an enthusiast of the Land Rover Discovery 4.
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