RideLust

Thumbs Up: Believe the hype: the Evoque is as good as critics say it is.

Thumbs Down: All that style and luxury carries a hefty price with it.

Buy This Car If: You want the most stylish crossover on the market today and can swing the price of admission.

When the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque debuted in late 2011, we quickly got tired of reading all the praise heaped on Range Rover’s latest model. It seemed like no one had a bad thing to say about the stylish crossover, and the Evoque just kept winning accolades month after month. Since launch, it’s picked up eight awards that we’re aware of, including the 2012 North American Truck of the Year, the 2012 World Design Car of the Year, 2012 Best of the Best from Autoweek, 2012 SUV of the Year from Motor Trend and the 2011 Car of the Year from Top Gear. Read More…

The Range Rover Evoque was designed to open doors for Jaguar Land Rover, and to attract new customers to the somewhat stodgy brand. For many American buyers, a Range Rover was nothing more than a way of telling the neighbors you made more money than them (and didn’t worry about details like depreciation or reliability). That may work in the suburbs, but it didn’t play well with young, urban hipsters, who Jaguar Land Rover desperately wants as customers. Read More…

The 2012 Range Rover Evoque. Image: Jaguar Land Rover

While still capable off-road to some degree, the Range Rover Evoque is primarily a “lifestyle vehicle,” targeted to urban hipsters who want to be seen driving the trendiest new vehicles. As such, more effort went into designing a cool-but-functional interior than picking the perfect engines, although the turbodiesel and turbocharged gas engines used in the Evoque will be perfectly suitable to most drivers. Read More…

Image: Jaguar Land Rover

The Land Rover Defender is known the world over as a non-nonsense SUV that will get you anywhere you need to go. Period, end of sentence. It has no luxury aspirations, but it enjoys a rabid cult following that ranges from British farmers through explorers and adventurers to well-off suburbanites who like to portray the image of adventure. The Defender will get you to the grocery store, even if you have to take game trails or forge your own path to get there; in fact, long after the human race has been wiped off the earth, giant cockroaches will probably be driving the last remaining Defenders, at least until fossil fuel runs out. Read More…

Image: Jaguar Land Rover South Africa, via Inside Line

Your opinion may differ, but I’m calling a battery powered safari vehicle a really, really bad idea. Sure, you can get closer to wildlife without the fumes or exhaust note of a turbo-diesel warning them of your presence, but is that really a good idea in an open vehicle with limited range? Do you really want to surprise a sleeping lion, only to find out that 12 miles of reserve range only equals 2 miles with the accelerator pinned to the floorboard? Getting eaten by a wild animal always struck me as a stupid way to die, and this particular EV conversion might as well come with nozzles that spray a basting sauce on tourists. Read More…

*Photo Credit: Autocar.co.uk

The Land Rover Defender is considered by some to be the ultimate vehicle for use in off-road travel. It’s been around since 1948 and even though they’re a rare site here in the United States, these vehicles still draw a crowd wherever they go. Think of the Defender at Britain’s version of the Jeep Wrangler. It’s uncomfortable, brash and rough riding on dry paved roads. However, it’s when the roads disappear that the old brute really comes into it’s own. Right now rumors are swirling that Land Rover is going to develop an entirely new Defender that is said to go into production by 2015. The problem is we have no real idea on what the specifications of the vehicle will be. What we do know is that, according to Autocar.co.uk, that Land Rover is currently working on how the new Defender will be marketed once it is produced. Stay tuned as we’ll be posting more information as soon as we hear anything.

Source: Autocar.co.uk

Looking back at my own life, I can only think of two or three ex-girlfriends who’d want to see me dead. Of those, I can only think of one who’d actually go to extraordinary measures to pull it off, so I won’t be signing up to lease a new Land Rover Discovery 4 Armored SUV any time soon. Jacksonville has a high crime rate, but it isn’t that high and good situational awareness is enough to get you by.

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We’ve already told you all there is to know about the Range Rover Evoque (here and here), which won’t be on the streets for another ten months or so. That didn’t stop Range Rover from creating the above video, which appears to show a virtual Evoque being virtually driven through virtual streets, by ghosts. You do get a good sense of what the Evoque looks like on the road, and you also get a decent look at the Evoque’s well appointed interior and panoramic roof.

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The 2011 Range Rover Evoque may be the best looking SUV (or crossover, depending upon your perspective) in the history of mankind. Will you be able to ford jungle streams and climb straight up the side of a volcano in one, like you could in a Land Rover Defender or a classic Range Rover? No, probably not, unless the stream is only a few inches deep and the volcano has a gravel road to the caldera. That certainly won’t hurt Evoque sales, since the urban-hip SUV is aimed at a buyer more concerned with image than with capabilities.

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The only downside about the United States is that we don’t get all the same go fast goodies that the Europeans do. For the most part this is fine until it comes to something that I want, something like this Bowler EXR Nemesis for example. Bowler is a UK based company that tunes and modifies all things Land Rover. Over here in the U.S. modified Land Rovers are all but non-existent aside from the occasional 26-inch wheel bling machines that roll around NY and LA. In the UK though Bowler has carved out quite a little niche for itself by transforming these standard off-roaders into fire breathing powerhouses capable of going just about anywhere.
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