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Land Rover's top model - the full-size, luxury Range Rover - comes to market with some major changes for 2006, improving on the line that had already received a complete makeover just three years ago.
The biggest news is the addition of a supercharged version - billed as the "most powerful Range Rover ever."
But even the normally aspirated HSE model, which we tested for this report, received a good share of upgrades.
Another big change for 2006 is that the Range Rover's engines are now derived from Jaguar. These new engines replace the V-8 that Land Rover had been buying from German luxury automaker BMW, the former owner of Land Rover. Ford Motor Co. bought the British Land Rover luxury brand in mid-2000, ending the company's short life as a subsidiary of BMW, which had purchased it just four years earlier.
Today's Range Rover owes much of its development to BMW, however. BMW co-developed the vehicle with Land Rover so that the platform could be used for a new line of BMW sport utility vehicles as well.
Ford took over and finished development of the Range Rover side of the equation, rolling out the new generation in 2002 as a 2003 model.
Development was so far along when Ford took over that Land Rover had to buy the 283-horsepower 4.4-liter V-8 engine from BMW. It then took Ford three years to develop its own engines and redesign the Range Rover to accommodate them.
In the 2006 model, the base engine is a normally aspirated aluminum 4.4-liter V-8 rated at 305 horsepower and 325 foot-pounds of torque. That's what comes with the Range Rover HSE model, our test vehicle, which carries a base sticker price of $75,035 plus $715 freight.
For a starting p ...