Video: 2015 Land Rover Discovery Sport - First Look

Land Rover wants a whole range of vehicles called Discovery, much like it does with Range Rover, and this one is the first. Now the new Discovery Sport anchors the bottom end of Land Rover's lineup. It replaces the LR2, but it has a longer wheel base in both the LR2 and Land Rovers other baby SUV, the Range Rover Evoke. A kind of a little bit larger than the Evoke. Definitely still has traditional Land Rover cues, like a swept around nose here with the two bar grill,, clam shell hood. Around back, I actually like what they've done with the tail lights a lot more. Less BD looking then on the Range Rover Evoke. Still more than eight inches of ground clearance, a removable front bumper here, if you really want to maximize those approach angles. So should have plenty of off-road ability in this one. Fairly traditional interior here. If you've been in other land rovers recently, a very vertical kind of center stack here with large knobs and dials here for some of the major controls. Speaking of knobs, the transmission, the nine speed automatic uses this knob that comes out of the center tunnel here to go from park to drive, or what have you. Land Rover's terrain response system, a knob in some of its models actually moves up here to the center stack. You can dial it over to any terrain situation you see outside. Now, not quite as opulent inside the Discovery Sport as you can get in like the Range Rover Evoke. Things like the leather upper dashboard that you can get in the Evoke, you can't really get here. Second row space, pretty good once you have the seat slid all the way back. And a lot of versatility here, the 60/40 split seat reclines a few degrees with these hip point levers. Actually reclines a good amount, if you want to take a little snooze back here. Also, it goes forward and backward about six inches total. Now an optional two position, third row raises total seating capacity in the Discovery Sport up to seven. It seems like it should be a total joke, right? Except that actually, if you move the second row forward, a few inches where that's where it is right now, I could sit up there, okay. Actually back here, adults could be here for a short amount of time. It wouldn't be too bad, especially cause you have some amenities back here, like fan speed control with actual air vents in the seat pillars. The Discovery Sport will start around $39,000. That's a little bit over the old LR2 and just a few thousand dollars under the Range Rover Evoke. That means that small SUV Land Rover shoppers will have two SUV's to choose from one, a little more premium, one, a little more utilitarian. Once the new Discovery Sport goes on sale in early 2015. (engine revving)