Range Rover Evoque: a global best-seller

Luxurious niceties provide a sense of bespoke old-world charm.

Since its introduction, the Range Rover Evoque has been Jaguar Land Rover Group’s best-selling vehicle worldwide. In fiscal year 2014, the Evoque sold around 270,000 vehicles, accounting for a substantial chunk of the Group’s combined 462,678 vehicles sold.

The Evoque meets the demands of urban goers who require a smaller vehicle that is tall-riding, versatile and easier to drive, and has less fuel consumption and exhaust emission compared to a traditional Land Rover.

Victoria Beckham was the poster girl for this model, and it was indeed a smashing success.

A lot of third-world and newly industrialized countries found favors with the Evoque: It had the cool British branding (Range Rover) and easy-to-drive demeanor, yet is packed with technology, allowing it to live by the best-so-far 4×4 ethos, having been tested to perform surprisingly well in light to medium offroad trails and environments worldwide.

This isn’t the first time I’ve reviewed the Evoque. In 2013, I had the pleasure of driving the three-door Dynamic variant, and this time I was handed the keys to the Prestige midgrade five-door variant.

Later in the year, the Evoque will be equipped with its own Ingenium line of 2-liter four-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines developed internally by Jaguar Land Rover. The current range of Ford-sourced gasoline and diesel engines, however, are impressive nonetheless.

Locally, we get the six-speed automatic transmission with four-wheel drive, made by Aisin Transmissions.

Will it get the Discovery Sport’s excellent ZF nine-speed automatic later on? I hope so, because the ZF shifts better and the nine-speed transmission negates the need for a conventional low-range transfer case, helping to improve the Evoque’s offroad prowess because first gear is pretty much equal to four—low.

The Evoque has a cool British branding and easy to drive demeanor, yet is packed with technology.

Styling is the one aspect that catches anyone’s attention: It’s sleek, sharp and chiseled, edgy and aggressive, like a confident woman wearing a translucent short-skirted dress in really-high stilettos flowing in the wind. Sensual also helps describe it.

Before this gets all X-rated, the Evoque in five-door trim  also makes it much more practical and hides the two extra rear doors, aping the silhouette of the three-door coupe version very well.

The 8.5 inches/215 millimeters of ground clearance means it is capable in most offroad conditions and the fording depth of 500 mm gives you confidence in all but the most extreme of flash floods.

At the launch of the Discovery Sport earlier this year in Iceland, I spoke with some Jagaur Land-Rover tech people and learned that the 500 mm fording depth is in fact very conservative; they’ve tested it closer to 1 meter with no problems.

Nice to know it can hack that, but I sure as well wouldn’t want to discover the limits these engineers dared to probe in a vehicle that’s not mine.

Inside, it is pure luxury. Soft leather, rich wood trimming with a dash of silver, carbon-fiber or aluminum inlays (depending on how crazy you go with your options) to spice up things.

The styling catches anyone’s attention: It’s sleek, sharp and chiseled, edgy and aggressive.

The large 8-inch LCD multimedia and infotainment system displays vehicle settings, entertainment options, climate control settings and more.

LED mood lights help give the Evoque a special sense of occasion when you’re just sitting inside it in traffic.

The recessed knob that is the gear shift pops up when you start the Evoque, and Land Rover’s excellent Terrain Response Management System—perhaps the best in all of automotive-dom—sits beneath the gearshift knob.

For the most part, it will stay in Highway setting, but should you be one of the lucky few to own one, believe me, you should try it out offroad, at least on some light, high-speed trails. Just air down the all-terrain tires a bit and hit the rough stuff!

The steering wheel adjusts for reach and rake electronically, and the seats offer 14-way adjustment to suit a variety of drivers.

On the road, the suspension is firm, but it makes the Evoque very maneuverable. On fast-winding roads, you would think the Evoque has an identity crisis: Is it an overgrown hot hatch, like a Volkswagen Golf GTi or Peugeot’s rumored upcoming 308 GTi, or is it truly a small, crossover SUV?

Nevertheless, it’s quite amazing on road, taking the fight right to the competition’s doors, such as Porsche’s highly impressive Macan; its twin, the Audi Q5; BMW’s all-new X3; or Mercedes-Benz’s GLK.

The steering is light and can do with a touch more feel, but only because the Evoque can get crazy fast quick and you’ll need all the steering effort and feedback you can get to keep it in control as the speed piles up.

Thankfully, the brakes are more than enough to keep speed (and silliness) in check as the powerful stoppers has no problems hauling down the 1,700-kilogram Evoque to a full stop, with no hint of fade driving down Tagaytay.

It can do with a bit more pedal firmness and a wee more modulation, but changing brake fluid plus a proper speed bleeder can easily rectify that.

On the high street, people still point and stare at the Evoque. The design is still fresh; nothing else looks quite like it.

The sloping roof and hood are made from aluminum, with a lot of space-grade plastics elsewhere particularly in the tailgate to help shed 100 kg from the body.

It’s also surprisingly roomy: Drop the rear seats and you get one flat shelf from which you can pile on a whole lot of stuff, which makes the Evoque surprisingly practical and versatile.

Once again, I had the diesel variant. Despite being bigger, fuel consumption was similar at roughly 10 kilometers per liter in my combined city and highway drive.

On the highway, traveling between 100-120 km per hour, the instant fuel readout showed a very decent 15 kpl with a steady foot. Not bad for a luxuriously-packed crossover SUV.

Jaguar Land Rover is moving from strength to strength. For fiscal year 2015, the Group aims to surpass the 500,000 sales mark, and it looks like it will, despite the Chinese economy slowing down visibly, causing mild panic worldwide.

But the affluent will always have spare money for something like the Evoque. It’s sleek, stylish, very capable on- and offroad, and is packed with luxurious niceties that provide a sense of bespoke old-world charm that the Germans, despite offering equally impressive vehicles, just can’t seem to give.

Banish your fears of Rovers being unreliable and costly to maintain. Thanks to some (okay, a lot of) Indian help, Jagaur Land Rovers—such as the Evoque—have the style, uniqueness and panache to stand toe-to-toe against the Germans.