But all that's gone with the new model, since it is now firmly on a level with the current Range Rover in many ways, though with slightly less expensive trappings so that the Ford-owned company could keep charging luxury prices for the older model.
It has a brand new architecture that's designed to hold at least a couple more Land Rover variations and that allowed huge engineering improvements of every kind -- body stiffness, parts count, assembly simplicity, and on and on. As a result, everything about this vehicle was improved, and that's obvious without the vehicle firing up a single cylinder.
Compared to the Disco, LR3 looks classier, it's easier to get into, there's more room (for either five or seven), things are laid out better and have a higher quality feel, it's more pleasing to the eye, you name it.
Land Rover executives keep saying that most people think the LR3 is smaller than the current Discovery, which leads me to think most people must be crazy. In truth, the LR3 is bigger than the Disco and almost the same size as the Range Rover.
Cleverly, the Land Rover designers have shaped the LR3 so it looks like the Discovery in the rear (that famous side-skylight roof shape without the skylight this time) and the Range Rover in the front.
It's also unlikely that you'd see any of the body gaps from space, since the improvements that have gone into the whole Land Rover process (at great cost to Ford, it must be added) are clearly visible in that aspect of the vehicle.
Bottom line, you have to think that Land Rover could be on to something with these changes, since the firm managed to sell a goodly number of the awful Discovery models and now has one to sell that's actually worth buying.
What is not visible from the photos is the quality of the interior, which now comes pretty close to that of the auto industry's best interior -- the Range Rover -- though it's not as lush, for price-comparison reasons.
The LR3's design director, Geoff Upex, says ''the priority was to give the passengers and driver a superb cabin environment, with more headroom and greater comfort. It has big, deep windows, because that provides greater airiness and a better view.''
Land Rover is so pleased with its new vehicle that its managing director, Matthew Taylor, calls the LR3 ''the ultimate premium sport-utility package,'' based on its ''class-leading breadth of capability, innovative user-friendly technology, and new levels of interior space.''
Since almost no one in North America ever actually ventures into a pavement-free zone in an SUV (not even a Land Rover), it's probably enough that the overall quality and the interior design and style of the LR3 are so much better.