New Land Rover’s Discovery Nominated To A Car Of the Year Competition

The All-New Land Rover’s Discovery has been nominated as a finalist in the 2018 South African car of the year competition – fresh off the back of its modern challenge: towing a 110-tonne road train in the Australian Outback. The sight of a seven-trailer truck being pulled by using an SUV sounds far-fetched, however, that’s precisely what happened when Land Rover put the All-New Land Rover’s Discovery to the ultimate towing test.

Road trains cover the large distances of Australia’s Outback, carrying fuel, mineral ore and cattle among remote rural communities. these mega-transporters can include up to 4 trailers, with strict regulations limiting them to a maximum length of 53.5m. to show off the particularly towing prowess of the All-New Land Rover’s Discovery, Land Rover obtained special permission to pull seven trailers and the 12-tonne tractor unit, which was retained to operate the hydraulic brakes suited to the trailers. This unique road train was 100 meters long and weighed 110 000kg.

Ready with All-Wheel force and Land Rover’s 3.0-litre diesel engine, producing 190kW and 600Nm, the All-New Land Rover’s Discovery efficiently towed the 100-metre-long, 110-tonne road train for 16 kilometers along a closed section of the Lasseter highway. On public roads, the All-New Land Rover’s Discovery Td6 is rated to safely tow 3,500kg.

“when Land Rover first was given in touch, I didn’t assume the vehicle would be able to do it, so i used to be surprised by how effortlessly the standard Discovery pulled a 110-tonne road train. And the smoothness of the gear changes under that amount of load was definitely remarkable,” said John Bilato, managing Director of haulage specialist G&S transport.

The extreme test was completed using an All-New Land Rover’s Discovery Td6 and is the latest in a series of remarkable towing demonstrations completed by the invention family. At its 1989 launch, the original Discovery i was used to pull a train and last year the discovery sport premium compact SUV towed a trio of rail carriages 26m above the Rhine River.

“Towing functionality has always been an essential part of Discovery DNA and the raw weight of the road train tells only half the story here. Pulling a rig and seven trailers, with the rolling resistance of so many axles to conquer, is a huge success. We predicted the vehicle to do well however it handed this test with flying colors, hitting 44km/h along its 16km route,” said Quentin Spottiswoode, Land Rover Product Engineer.

For this ultimate towing test, the discovery used a standard 8-speed automatic transmission and 4-wheel drive system and become hooked up to the road train using a factory-fitted tow bar attachment. The road train itself was even carrying 10-tonnes of ballast to be able to hit the magic 110-tonne weight mark.

With 600Nm of torque, the Td6 is properly perfect to pulling heavy loads. The 190kW 3.0-litre single-turbo engine features low-pressure exhaust recirculation and a -stage oil pump for improved responses, refinement, and efficiency. As a result, the diesel model delivers CO2 emissions of 207g/km and fuel economy of 7.8l/100 km.

All-New Discovery’s advanced Tow help technology takes the strain out of reversing by providing responsive trajectory lines on the rear camera feed to the central touchscreen. This allows the driver to steer the car using the rotary Terrain response 2 controllers at the center console even as the system calculates the steering inputs required to achieve the desired outcome.