Erin Baker: Gerry McGovern vs Discovery detractors

The new Discovery was easily the star of the show for both Jaguar Land Rover and the assembled British journalists. The seven-seat SUV is nearly 12 years old and, much like the Defender, has been loved by families for its boxy design and more “practical” appeal. The new model has drawn both criticism and praise for its far more curvaceous lines, familiar Land Rover family face, and loss of the split tailgate. Does Gerry McGovern care (I feel I already know the answer to that one)?

“I thought [the split tailgate] would be one of the most talked-about things, but I think we’ve been quite clever. The reasons we’ve done it are simple: one of the focuses was to get a higher lever of premium execution: smaller panel gaps, tighter tolerances. If you do that as one piece, you get much better quality in terms of the gaps and overall finish, What it also affords you is a bigger aperture – you’ve only got one lot of mechanisms to open.

"So although we've got rid of the split tailgate, we've just approached it in a different way, a more relevant way.

“I don’t want to upset our customers, but I really thing the view that “that’s what it’s like” is a very retrospective way of looking at it… I think it’s a design that traditionalists will warm to.”

One of the major buying points for the Discovery is its appeal to families. The new Disco comes with easily accessible Isofix points and nine USB charging points – imagine the bliss – five children, all on separate devices. And yet both Jaguar and Land Rover have climbed steadily up the premium pole in the past couple of years. “Kids like to sit in something premium too”, retorts McGovern. "Although it’s got premium materials, it will be durable. The kid thing is as much about making sure people realise this is a family vehicle; it’s inclusive. It allows you to carry your family in style."

But what about making Land Rover more luxurious? The design of the new Discovery certainly brings the model closer to the ultra-luxury Range Rover, although it’s difficult to pin down how they’ve done it. “It’s the way you shape it,” McGovern tells me. “And the way you finish it, in terms of the level of premium appointments… If you look at the levels of precision you get in a high-quality Swiss watch, why can’t we achieve those levels of precision in a vehicle interior? That would communicate we're serious about luxury. Easier said than done, but our aspiration is for standards to increase as we go on.”

Maybe the Discovery paves the ground for the feel of a new Defender, whenever it appears. Listen to McGovern talk about Discovery: “I felt very strongly that we should move the Discovery on. And, while recognising its unique roots, that particular design was out for nearly 12 years and was very much an industrial-design product approach, which was good for its time, and I’m a big fan of it, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to continue that kind of look. We wanted to create something that would be more universally appealing, and more desirable, frankly… I wanted to make Discovery sexy.”

Something tells me that the amount of noise that accompanied Discovery’s launch will be as nothing when a new Defender is eventually shown to the public. Stand by.