Dan Trent: Land Rover Discovery 3 a classless masterpiece?

Defender has now gone and Range Rover's aspirational swagger has been masterfully played from Evoque to long-wheelbase luxury versions of the senior car. As such the supposedly standalone Discovery range had a chance to inherit the green welly end of Land Rover's customer base. And the new one is supposedly more capable off-road than ever. But compared with the blocky Discovery 3 and 4, it looks like it might baulk at crunching over a gravel driveway, let alone haul itself over a rocky mountain pass or wade through axle-deep mud.

En route to the unveiling of the new version in Paris, I saw an early Discovery 3 parked by the road, complete with its utilitarian grey plastic wheel arches and bumpers. You might not think it watching the open warfare around the Arc de Triomphe, but Parisian drivers are much smarter than their London equivalents and seem less fixated on the idea of blingy SUVs. But if I had to drive a 4x4 in traffic like that, I'd want it to be more like that Discovery 3 than the new one: the square-cut proportions are easier to place, the bigger glass area better for spotting the gaps and the unpainted bumpers appropriate for Continental style 'touch' parking.

To me, the Discovery 3's blocky looks are a masterpiece of design; it's distinctive, stylish, clear about its intentions but also deeply functional. This seems to me a very Land Rover thing. After all, from a Balmoral runabout for HRH to battered workhorse for Welsh hill farmers, the Defender was the definition of classless, no-nonsense motoring. The Discovery combined this with the kind of daily usability that's endeared it to many.

Not to worry, there are tonnes of Discovery 3s and 4s in the classifieds, ready to be used and (perhaps) abused as intended. And given they're all V6 diesels (the 2.7-litre PSA one in the 3 or the more advanced JLR developed 3.0-litre in the 4) there's no need to deliberate too hard over the spec. Now, there's no escaping a certain reputation for expensive upkeep with these vehicles, even when they're working as they should and the complex suspension and other gadgets aren't playing up. As such I'm less bothered by the fact many have big miles on them - I'd hope these are the proven survivors with the gremlins taken care of by previous owners. Or maybe I'm just hopelessly optimistic. 

So what to buy? This manual is a curio and might appeal to someone looking for a properly tough machine with off-road cred. Odd that it's got blingy wheels on it, though. The ones on this car are more like it and I like the contrast between the plastic bodycladding and  pale metallic paint, or did until I saw the vendor seems to have since added a tacky chrome pack to it. Yuck. With its retro blue paint and orange indicators, this one, to me, embodies the spirit of the original Discovery, has the square-cut style I love in the second generation car and the timeless, classless Land Roverness I think is lacking in the new one. With a fine layer of country lane mud covering its panels, it'd be just about perfect.

Images courtesy of Pistonheads