Nine Things to Know About the 2018 Range Rover Velar - THE SHORT LIST

Helping enable its impossibly smooth flanks are unique retracting door handles, perhaps this Range Rover’s signature design element. Not only do they look so cool, quietly motoring in when the vehicle is locked, they also help improve aerodynamics, however slightly, by retracting at speeds greater than 5 miles an hour. Undoubtedly, this is a frivolous touch, and one that raises long-term reliability questions, but I still love it!

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As you might expect, the Velar’s cabin is just as breathtaking as what you see outside, dominated by a pair of 10-inch high-definition screens on the dashboard and center console, both of which are home to the InControl Touch Pro Duo infotainment system. These two displays replace myriad physical buttons and switches with a slick digital interface.

Powering all this is an Intel quad-core processor and a high-speed solid-state drive, though none of this cutting-edge tech responds with immediacy; everything seems just a whisker slower than it should be. This is all a bit overwhelming to use, especially at first, but poke around for a little while and you soon learn there’s a method to the apparent madness.

Of course, there’s more to the Velar’s interior than just screens, even if our top-of-the-line First Edition test model also features a 12.3-inch reconfigurable digital instrument cluster. Seriously upping the luxury factor, there’s creamy soft leather on practically every surface, though the white cow hides fitted here probably aren’t going to stay that way for very long given the wear and tear of daily life. There are also available 20-way adjustable front bucket seats with heating, cooling and massage functionality. A surfeit of driver-assistance tech including lane-keeping assist, traffic-sign recognition, adaptive cruise control that works in stop-and-go traffic and more enhances safety while reducing fatigue.

As for mechanicals, American motorists can choose between three different engines in the Velar. A 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder gasoline unit serves base duty and delivers 247 horses. There’s also a diesel of the same displacement and layout with 180 ponies on tap.

But the powerplant you’ll most likely want is the top-level supercharged 3.0-liter V6 that packs a 380-horse kick in the pants. Torque clocks in at 332 pound-feet. No matter the powerplant, a responsive and slick ZF eight-speed automatic transmission is standard. Six-cylinder Velars can accelerate to 60 miles an hour in as little as 5.3 seconds smoothly building speed and providing a hint of blower whine to boot.

In person, the Velar is smaller than you might expect. For whatever reason it looks HUGE in photos.

With an overall length of about 189 inches it’s a touch shorter than rivals like the Audi Q7, Acura MDX or Mercedes-Benz GLE. Luggage capacity is likewise similar to these competitors, with more than 34 cubic feet (974 liters) of space available behind the second row and around 70 (1,985 liters) with the backrests dropped, which you can’t seem to do from the cargo hold, which is a questionable design decision.

Despite its concept-car styling, the Velar can still go just about anywhere thanks to cutting-edge four-wheel-drive technology. Models equipped with the top-level V6 engine feature air-suspension that can raise and lower the body, providing up to 9.9 inches (25 cm) of ground clearance. At max lift, the vehicle can wade through nearly 26 inches (66 cm) of water.

Providing refined ride quality with stable handling, adaptive dampers are standard across the board, monitoring wheel movements 500 times and body movements 100 times per second.

Terrain Response 2 is the top four-wheel-drive system offered. It’s standard on First Edition models and optional on every other. Ensuring you never get mired is a laundry list of features like Intelligent Driveline Dynamics, an Active Locking Rear Differential, All Terrain Progress Control and much more.