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New York City in the Land Rover LRX Concept
The Land Rover LRX made its debut at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, only the second concept produced in the 60-year history of the Solihull marque.
We all dutifully swooned in its presence and asked if it would ever get built. This, of course, is the cue for the platitudes to come spewing out of the corporate spin machine: "It represents an interesting direction"; "We're not confirming anything right now"; and, most excruciating of all, "Internally we'd like to do it but we need to prove the business case first."
Oh, please. If you can't confirm that there is a business case for a vehicle as good-looking as the Land Rover LRX — especially since it will get 50 mpg — you need to go back to something closer to kindergarten, not just business school.
New York Rendezvous
We meet the Land Rover LRX again a couple of weeks later under rather different circumstances. This time the venue is not a crowded stand at an auto show but instead a New York studio occupied by a few fretful Land Rover staffers.
The LRX's creator, Land Rover Design Director Gerry McGovern, is striding around his baby and exuding passion and confidence from within his conspicuously sharp suit. McGovern already has the original Freelander and MGF to his name but even he must know the LRX is his masterpiece, a vehicle visually powerful enough to make you overlook the forgettable Lincoln concepts he developed.
McGovern describes the LRX in various ways, using a number of tag words such as "purposeful," "robust" and "premium" — all of which are undeniably accurate. But the one that stays with us is "relevant."
We've yet to see a car more relevant to both the needs and the desires of an environmentally sensitive, legislatively proscribed, and yet still style-conscious customer than the Land Rover LRX.
Adventure Driving in Manhattan
We're here because somehow we've been anointed as the first (and, to date, only) person outside Land Rover's inner sanctum to be allowed to drive the LRX. It's in the greatest city in the world because Land Rover is keen on positioning the LRX as a car born for "the urban jungle."
To say Land Rover is nervous about letting the LRX loose on the streets of New York City is to understate the frankly bleeding obvious. The LRX is valued conservatively at a million bucks, although that's not really the point. What really matters is that this LRX is the only one in the world.
So when the Land Rover representatives suggest that we reverse the LRX the wrong way up Lexington Avenue in the thick of the morning rush hour, we politely decline and then shudder as someone else does it and Crown Victoria taxis and bewitched pedestrians come within inches of the LRX's perfect shape. Though the thermometer is registering something on the bracing side of the freezing point on this sunny morning in January, this small corner of downtown Manhattan is being brought to a standstill by a pearlescent white Land Rover.
Through numbed lips and oscillating teeth, we play the innocent bystander and ask a newly arrived gawper what he thinks this vehicle is. "I dunno," says he, "apart from some kind of Land Rover I wanna get in my garage." Since he's too far away to read any badge and has clocked the vehicle's identity from its looks alone, we realize that McGovern's assertion that the LRX is unmistakably a Land Rover despite its futuristic looks is not just corporate blather after all.
A Trip to Pastoral New Jersey
We move to the quieter environs of New Jersey to experience the LRX in a less threatening environment, and the Land Rover LRX looks even more impressive out here where the only motorized competition for attention must be found among the Buicks, Fords and the endless anonymous Japanese boxes, all encrusted with winter grime. The LRX is like Venus at a branch meeting of an unusually hideous society of trolls.
As the LRX is unlicensed, unregistered and, to be blunt, entirely illegal, the Feds are on site. And in exchange for an undisclosed chunk of Land Rover's burgeoning profits, they have closed a road for us to trundle up and down.
And trundle we do. Those expecting a detailed assessment of its diesel-electric hybrid drive, its start-stop technology and the way in which Electric Rear Axle Drive (ERAD) helps out in sticky off-road situations should look away now. If confirmed for production, the LRX will have all these things, but the one you're looking at is about as technologically advanced as a steam iron. Land Rover won't even tell us what engine it has, much less let us have a look at it. All we can tell you is that the engine is a V6, the transmission is automatic and the LRX would struggle to keep up with the 27-year-old Land Rover Series III.
A Learning Experience
Even so, there are things that can be learned here. Despite the fact that the LRX is both shorter in overall length and lower to the ground than even an LR2, its driving position is pure Land Rover. And while it's clear that the vast expanses of tanned leather and beautifully machined metal will have to be toned down more than a little for production, Land Rover is making a statement about its intention to retain its reputation as the premium SUV manufacturer.
The most outstanding feature of the cabin is not its extravagance, the iPhone in the center console or the way the front seats pitch forward to allow a mountain bike to be stowed lengthways. Instead it is the extraordinary amount of space that has been liberated from what is — by SUV standards — a very compact vehicle. Part of the reason for this is the use of extremely slim seats.
As a result, McGovern and his design team have managed to deliver a car with good room in the front, excellent head- and legroom in the rear and a substantial trunk, despite the fact that the LRX is only 1 centimeter longer than a Ford Focus. But there's a problem, McGovern tells us. "People associate big seats with comfort," he says, "and it's difficult to design a slim seat to still have that premium look."
Navigating the Treacherous Trails of the Bronx
After our gentle introduction to the LRX in Jersey, we head back under the Hudson River courtesy of the Lincoln Tunnel and turn north toward the Bronx. There's one location left to visit — a highway under elevated railway tracks that looks like something out of the chase sequence in The French Connection (but not — the 1971 movie was filmed in Brooklyn).
There's no mirror in the car, and those on the fenders are useless. We've been told to keep the handmade tires out of the potholes, which in this part of the world is like trying to avoid the rain in a monsoon. We crawl the LRX up and down the road for the photographer, utterly terrified that we're going to get sideswiped by some unseen Mack truck.
The Future of Land Rover
It is too easy by far to get swept up in all that the LRX could mean for Land Rover. It could transform Land Rover from a company in danger of being marginalized into one of the most relevant in the market. It could determine an entire generation of car design, while its diesel-hybrid powertrain could combine the enthusiasms of Europe and America into one of the most credible answers to some of the most important questions of our time.
Could, could, bloody could. We remind you the Land Rover LRX is a concept car, and Land Rover won't even say it's going into production. But when we asked McGovern if he could think of just one good reason why it would not be built, his response was a fairly unequivocal, "Er, no."
If the feel of this LRX — if not its precise detailing — can be bottled, preserved and used to create the DNA for a production vehicle, we believe people will line up to buy it.
Driving the Land Rover LRX Concept
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