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HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANGE ROVER
The thrill of driving... at 3kph?
Is it really possible to find driving thrills at walking pace? Dimitri Pesin drives through the UAE in celebration of 40 years of Range Rover
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RANGE ROVER OFF-ROAD IN THE UAE
Pictures Khaled Termanini
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t’s just gone 10 in the morning and already this is starting to look like one of those trips I may end up regretting. I’m trying to negotiate my way up a dusty, rocky hill at the base of a mountain just outside Masafi on the north-east coast of the UAE. I place the Range Rover’s front wheels on the smoothest track, avoiding the pointy rocks, and power my way up the incline. The V8 picks up the revs, surges forwards, and no sooner have I started pointing up a gradient than the wheels lose traction, spin up dust and no amount of additional throttle is going to get me out of this situation - I’ve already lost momentum. I’m bogged down in the dry dirt and going nowhere. Bugger. Worse still, as I get out to survey my own uselessness and the dust settles, the left rear tyre looks deflated. And then it hits me: I’m
completely unprepared for this. Stupidly unprepared. I’ve planned an off-road trip, mentally ready to take the 2010 Range Rover HSE into rough ground across several terrains, and I haven’t so much as thought of a back-up plan if things go awry; I’ve simply packed a box of water bottles, turned the ignition key and off I went. Suspecting something jagged has pierced the tyre, I put my ear towards it but hear nothing. Thankfully, it’s only the weight of the sky-facing Rangie that’s loading the rear and making the tyre crease. I blame my ignorance at the potential obstacles ahead squarely at the car – it just feels so solid, so effortless in its gait both on and off-road that you end up taking it for granted, putting all of your faith in its engineering. Poignantly, there’s another, Cypress Green Range Rover just beside me that reminds me how far off-road technology has come. It’s a mint 1988 edition with a remarkable 13,000km reading on its odometre and no Terrain Response gizmos. It’s an analogue phone alongside the Cray supercomputer that is the new Range Rover. It also belongs to Mathias Doutreleau, a Dubai-based classic car collector and Land Rover buff. I’ve asked him to join
photographer Khaled and I on an off-road adventure that’ll see us cross as many surfaces and landscapes as we can master in one day, in an evo-style celebration of the world’s most iconic 4x4’s 40th birthday. Considering I wasn’t alive on Range Rover’s birth in 1970, and barely able to walk when this spotless 1988 car came out 22 years ago, it’ll help me get a feeling of how far Range Rover has evolved. The first leg of the journey is the boring part. The 100km-or-so route to our first terrain in Masafi is mostly featureless, but the kilometres quickly fade away. The 370bhp, naturally-aspirated V8 gently rumbles along, and with 376lb ft in torque output, transports us effortlessly without a sweat to our destination. It doesn’t grumble or make a fuss, and there’s just a faint whoosh of wind noise as you extend the engine’s reach. Of course, it rolls and pitches when you exert the chassis, but the steering is satisfyingly direct and if you shift manually, the gearbox reacts with a briskness that takes you by surprise. Our Rangie is in complete showroom spec, so the tyres are a compromise between dirt and road, and there’s no underside protection. Approaching Masafi, we select a road off the main highway purely
‘It just feels so solid, so effortless in its gait you end up taking it for granted, putting all your faith in its engineering’
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RANGE ROVER OFF-ROAD IN THE UAE
This page: the two Rangies encounter several off-road surfaces, and both handle the terrain with aplomb. Opposite page: spot the resemblances... Above left: the going gets tough. Left: 2010 Range Rover’s cabin is difficult to dislike; Terrain Response appears between dials in TFT display, showing which diffs are locking and where power is being distributed.
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RANGE ROVER OFF-ROAD IN THE UAE
Left: Not much phases the old Rangie. Right: momentum is key when you’re off-roading - especially if you’re travelling uphill. Below right: Sticker shows car’s Saudi origins; engine bay is full of flimsy wiring; spotless instruments show just over 13000km on the clock
‘The uneveness of the landscape articulates the live axles... because ‘it looks like it leads somewhere interesting’. We arrive at the end of the track to a Mars-like landscape with dark brown mountains and no wildlife. The odd piece of dumped food packaging and scraps of metal suggest this path is traversed at times, but the village housing lying between the hills is cordoned off by a wall. No chance to ask the locals for any tips on trails. We go about rock crawling. Mathias jumps in his car and puts on a display of car yoga. As he goes over the rocks and boulders, the engine sounds like its heaving, the car judders and jiggles a bit, and the uneveness of the landscape articulates the live axles: one side sets deep within the arches, the other looks like it’s hanging by a thread. It’s car contortion and looks like someone’s just snapped the axle. It doesn’t look like too much hard work behind the wheel, but the concentration in Mathias’s face says otherwise. Step into the HSE’s supple leather, shift to Neutral, press a button to select low range on the transfer case and twist the Terrain Response selector into Rock Crawl mode. You’re now ready. For anyone used to pedal-to-the-floor driving, going over rough ground would take a surprising amount of mental exertion. Momentum is key to progress. It should be just high enough to not get stuck, but low enough to keep contact with the ground and prevent blowing your tyres. The wonder of the Terrain Response system is that it manages the engine speed and works with the traction control and ABS systems to apply torque to
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it’s car contortion... like someone’s just snapped them off ’ the wheel with better traction, all the while locking front, centre and rear differentials when it best needs to. Sitting up high, you barely notice what’s happening beneath you. The centre console’s display shows you what’s going on, but physically you only feel the constantly adapting system work when you hear and feel the brakes being applied, or when no amount of throttle input will let you free more power from the engine. It’s almost voodoo-like. Yet still, there’s no relaxing. You need to be gentle and accurate, calm and progressive. You can’t charge at the road and hope that the air suspension deals with the rocks. Plus, this is a $90,000 car. Leaving Masafi and heading towards Lahbab, I discuss with Mathias what it is that makes the Range Rover name so iconic. He comes to the conclusion that history plays the biggest part. The Land Rover brand is heavily intertwined with the Middle East. The late Sheikh Zayed owned a Series 1 Land Rover in the 1940s, and although the Range Rover was originally meant to be a luxury off-roader for the American market (as Toyota with Lexus and Ford with Lincoln), the four-door Rangie didn’t take off until the ’80s. Up to then, only the first generation, two-door ‘Classic’ version existed. Many modified versions were popularly used for falconry. But then, in 1980, Swiss sportscar maker Monteverdi created their own four-door version. Land Rover watched with interest, and when Middle East royalty requested the bigger car, Range Rover reacted quickly to create it. The rest, as they say, is history.
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Above left: the village view over Masafi, on the northeast coast of the UAE; Terrain Response makes progress across gravel, mud and sand easy (above right)
‘The DNA comes through: the suppleness, the quaint pace is still there - as it is with the new Range Rover’
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RANGE ROVER OFF-ROAD IN THE UAE At Lahbab we encounter a huge expanse of gravelly terrain, but nowhere to really test the cars. It’s also freakishly dead-looking. Wilting bushes are few and far between, trees stand bare and frail. Although the plateaus are wide, there’s only one track going through the area, suggesting this isn’t a pleasant place to stop. We grab a few shots and make a swift exit to find some lunch. On our way out of town back towards Masafi, we spot a narrow path that seems to point towards nothing but a mountain peak. Gingerly making our way up, praying we won’t get stuck, we’re disappointed that the end of the road is simply a small quarry. But when we turn around we find the most arresting image of the day. Standing high on a pool of huge boulders, the view across the valley is a raft of bright colours. A large plantation of deep green date trees baring fruit in season lies below. Dotted around are orange and white-bricked village houses, and filling the horizon are endless curving mountains set beneath a spotless blue sky. Like many parts of the Middle East, the UAE is mostly featureless. But just occasionally, you find an isolated
gem of a scenery that makes you stop for a moment to absorb its splendour, as it briefly replaces the feeling of searing heat piercing your skin. With time not being on our side, we make our descent and I take the wheel of the old car as we head towards Sharjah Airport, near which on his UAE map Mathias has spotted a green patch we could head for. There’s a wonderful honesty about this car, from the thin, clunky doors to the baffling complexity of the exposed wiring in the engine bay, to the simplicity of the interior and the clean square lines. There are no complications inside either, no TFT displays, traction control or ABS. Just a simple, short lever for the low range box and a plaque with instructions on how to use it. It smells its age, but it’s a comforting smell – like straw bales on a farm. You sit even more upright than in the HSE and the view out is total. With only 164bhp from its 3.5-litre aluminium block V8 powering 2.5 tons, progress can best be described as leisurely. No matter how far you push the throttle down, it always seems to gather momentum at its own pace. While it has coil springs and disc brakes, they can’t really be relied on – it’s soft and wallowy.
What’s most refreshing though, is the way you can feel the mechanicals working. When we get to a patch of soft sand dotted with greenery just east of Sharjah, the challenge is to work the car and get it to the other side. It’s is all about driver skill. You feel how hard the engine is working, how the car manages the surface through its locked diffs and how it transfers torque in its viscous coupling. If you get stuck, it’s your fault. The DNA also comes through. You move around in your seat going over uneven ground, but the suppleness, the quaint pace is still there, as it is with the new Range Rover. Not to mention the off-road capability. It’s interesting to note how the Range Rover has moved on since its humble beginnings. Such is the level of Land Rover quality and design today, that buyers’ appreciation has gradually shifted from the rough dirt roads that it’s so capable of plying through, to the spangly valet parking lots of five-star hotels. This trip has been a reminder of where the Range Rover really came from, and that even with every new car it produces, it never forgets its roots. Happy Birthday Range Rover.
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