RANGE ROVER VELAR

SUV looks to enhance its luxury billing with a less-is-more approach to design that's subtler in some ways than others

- MATT SAUNDERS 

'Reductive design' was a term added to our vernacular when Land Rover launched its fourth Range Rover model, the Velar, in 2017.

At the time, some of us questioned the choice of words: a reductive approach to anything might not necessarily, universally or instantly be recognised as a positive thing by those less conversant with the sometimes lofty jargon of design, might it? The philosophy behind it, however - a natural evolution of the clean and minimalistic aesthetic into which so many premium car makers have now been tapping for so long certainly produced a bold and handsome luxury SUV.

And now, with the mid-life facelift that's taking effect for the 2024 model year, that thinking is being flexed all over again.

You could call the Velar's exterior design update pretty reductive, I suppose. There are new headlights and tail-lights, a new radiator grille, reshaped bumpers and some fresh exterior paint options, but the overall impact is subtle. This is the kind of update that you might notice on a car you're following or being followed by after dark but will take a keen eye otherwise.

On the technical side, most of the Velar's powertrains are all but unchanged. A fairly broad choice of mild-hybridised fourand six-cylinder engines, both petrol and diesel, remain part of the armoury. The four-cylinder petrol-electric plug-in hybrid system, meanwhile, gets a larger drive battery and a boost in tax-liability-defining official electric-only range to painfully close to 40 miles.