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LAND ROVER DISCOVERY SPORT ALPINE ADVENTURE

21/08/2018
Land Rover have been making off road vehicles for seventy years now, it seemed a nice way to celebrate this by using the Discovery Sport for a 1600 mile round trip from the Uk down to the Alps in France. You can only really give an honest review of a car when you have lived with it for a few weeks, so to cover the average users mileage one month in a five day period meant that myself and production driver Al would be in a position to give an appraisal of this top of the range HSE from experience, especially as we took in motorway, alpine passes and some off road terrain in the Alps.

The HSE comes well specified, panoramic roof, all of the off road terrain settings, Meridian speaker system, keyless entry, electric tailgate and the addition of a black pack, snazzy painted wheels and other aspects that give the off roader a stealthy look. The engine is the Ingenium 2 litre diesel that produces 240HP, making it go from 0-60 in 6.9 seconds, that is hot hatch territory from a two tonne four wheel drive. The car was come throughout the trip with its soft grain leather seats and lumbar support that was perfect for the miles we covered, especially on the first day where we went from the UK to our destination in one hit, two tanks of fuel, 600 miles and a baguette break and we arrived at our location in Briancon without any aches or pains.

During the trip we were covering the stretch of rivers that Susie and the fellow kayakers were covering, a lot of the roads were accessible, the added ride height and capability of the Discovery made light work of these areas though and the boot was big enough to swallow all of the photography and lighting equipment that I took for the trip.

Along the route the scenery was breathtaking, we used as many stunning backdrops to show off the livery on the car with the main sponsors and also to publicise the Kayak for Blackthorn charity, which Susie had now raised in excess of her £10,000 target for the Trust. The Discovery Sport averaged 33 mpg over 1600 miles, from the size and weight of the car it was pretty impressive and for me it was the ultimate all rounder for this trip. Many thanks to Barry and the team at Barrets Ashford, Kent for the use of the vehicle and also to SEC Signworks for the livery on the car.