New-gen Land Rover Discovery spotted testing

Jaguar Land Rover’s new design direction with its iconic Discovery range was first seen in it’s Discovery Vision concept from 2014. The new Land Rover Discovery Sport was only the beginning of these design cues starting to trickle down into the company’s offerings. A replacement was on the cards for the fourth generation Land Rover Discovery that’s currently on sale and these spy-shots confirm that the manufacturer may be gearing up to do just that. A test mule of the all-new, seven-seater, Land Rover Discovery has been spotted in the wild, in full-camo mode. 

The fifth generation Discovery shall continue to sport the model’s signature highlights; so Discovery fans can rejoice that they’ll still have the iconic off-positioned C-Pillar window on their car when it arrives into showrooms. But a few things may have been changed to help the Disco’ in keeping up with the times. Up front, the JLR Discovery appears to have gone through a bit of a remodel with its headlights, changing from the quintessential square profile to a more sleeker and narrower, rectangular one. LED lighting elements, though unconfirmed, are likely to make an appearance as well. The grille looks like it has been put through a diet, appearing smaller and sporting rounded lines. If the mesh-nets at the lower bumper corners are any indication, then that’s where the air-intakes on the fifth generation Discovery are. Overall, the test-mule offers a more, rounded profile view than the fourth generation model that’s currently on sale. At the rear, the tail-lights retain their pillar-mount, with the split-tail gate continuing on as before too.

Considerable weight reduction is expected in the fifth generation Land Rover Discovery. This is attributed to the fact that this all-new SUV shall use the famed, Premium Lightweight Architecture (PLA) that is seen on the Range Rover and the Discovery Sport. The platform uses significant amounts of aluminum in construction to pare weight even as structural rigidity is improved over the previous model.

JLR is expected to plonk the Ingenium family of petrol and diesel power-plants under the hood of the fifth generation Land Rover Discovery. The engines will come mated to the company’s eight-speed automatic gearbox as standard.