2005 Land Rover LR3 Preview
LIGHTHORNE, England: The first two things you notice about the replacement for the Land Rover Discovery II is how much it looks like the current Range Rover and how it's not the Discovery any more, it's the LR3.
And before you take even one step toward the hand-built model on the rain-soaked patio of the design centre in the English Midlands you let your brain run free on the possible ramifications of the new name.
As in, if this is the LR3 instead of the Discovery, then the Freelander will become the LR1 and the still-unseen sporty model will become the LR2, and holy cow will the Range Rover become the LR4?
''The Range Rover name change is not decided yet,'' says a Land Rover executive during the media reveal here on condition of anonymity, ''but it probably will happen.'' The name-game changes are only for North America, by the way; it'll be the Discovery 3 in the rest of the world.
The thinking here is similar to that which has caused companies trying to sell premium-priced cars to abandon their famous names for various alpha-numeric nicknames, such as Cadillac Seville for STS and so on.
This allows the owner of a low-priced model of the marque to lay claim to the full weight of the marque, no matter how inexpensive the model. This of course was pioneered by BMW and Mercedes-Benz and has worked in their favor so far.
At least people inside Land Rover assume that was the thinking. Apparently the surprise e-mail from senior management did not make clear the reasoning. As you might expect, there is considerable angst over this decision in certain quarters about giving away brand equity and abandoning history and all that. Angry huffing is still the order of the day in many quarters.
The official word from Barbara Barrett at Land Rover Canada is that the people in North America support the decision to change the name, since it's a wholly different vehicle and therefore deserves a new name.
There's something to be said for that, since there are vast numbers of smart luxury SUV buyers who wouldn't touch the current Disco with a barge pole, so drawing extra attention to the change might be wise.
Whatever it's called, the new model is a vast, vast, vast improvement on the current Discovery, which -- in terms of general refinement and fit and finish -- may be the worst vehicle sold in North America today. Even the British auto media, which promotes UK-built vehicles relentlessly and in the face of all reason, are embarrassed by Discovery. They joke that there are only two man-made items visible from space -- the Great Wall of China and the body gaps in the average Discovery 2.