The taillights, turn signals and rear fog lamps have also been tweaked and slightly relocated, and there are new alloy wheel designs for each model.
With its trademark alpine windows and utilitarian styling, the Discovery has a definite distinction. Flat panels and straight lines give it a neat, no-nonsense look that's handsome and classy. Many of the body panels, including the rear doors and quarter panels, are aluminum, to reduce weight and avoid corrosion. Others, like the hood and roof, are galvanized steel.
The current Discovery has a wider stance and a more confident look than pre-1999 models, but its visual heritage still goes back through the original Discovery, all the way back to the first Land Rover of 1948. It is a look that suggests safaris, expeditions, and high adventure. Two new exterior colors for 2003 bring the total to nine.
Discovery's interior is as distinctive as its exterior. It too was completely redesigned for 1999 to reduce British eccentricity. But British luxury abounds. The seats are comfortable in either Duragrain or leather. The driver's seat affords excellent visibility and there's lots of headroom. Land Rover calls its elevated seating the "Command Driving Position," and it does afford a commanding view of off-road driving situations.
Automatic climate control provides separate temperature adjustment for driver and passenger, and is easy to reach and to operate. Instruments include a compass, and a handy pointer on the fuel gauge reminds you which side the fuel filler door is on. An outside temperature readout is useful when traveling.
British eccentricity remains, however. Some of the switchgear is awkward to operate and requires the driver to look for the appropriate button. The audio system separates the AM and FM buttons instead of placing them alongside one another. Window switches are located on the center console rather than on the doors. The door lock button on the center dash is hard to find when you want to lock or unlock the doors quickly, like when someone is knocking on the window for you to unlock the door. And the small inside door handles are hard to find and awkward to use.
The step up to Discovery's interior is a big one, and getting into the back seat requires a squeeze through a narrow door opening. Kids don't have any trouble, but shorter, older folks find it challenging. Once back there, however, it's comfortable. Rear-seat passengers sit higher, leading to the stepped roof, and they can view the world through expansive side windows, upper alpine windows and their own sunroof with the SE and HSE. Interior stowage abounds with bins and pockets. There's a 12-volt accessory socket in the cargo area. Cargo nets, tie-downs, grab handles and a cargo cover come standard.
The Rear Seat Package uses two foldaway seats in the cargo area. These front-facing jump seats feature cleverly designed head restraints that drop down from the ceiling, along with three-point seat belts.
We'll long remember one 60-mile run in the middle of the night, on a dark, lonely, winding two-lane freeway against a huge headwind, with the cruise control set at 72. That one relatively brief stint tested most of the mechanical improvements to the 2003 Land Rover Discovery. And what we didn't learn that night, we had learned during the day driving all over the city.
First, we were pleased with the performance of the 4.6-liter V8 engine. Out on the freeway, it was amazingly unfazed by that wicked headwind. In spite of its bricklike shape, the Discovery sliced through the night silently and effortlessly, calling upon the impressive 300 foot-pounds of torque at 2600 rpm to get over some of the long climbs without the transmission needing to downshift. A new intake resonator, new sound insulation, revised body mounting points and materials, changes to the transfer case and gears, an overhaul of all the seal fittings, and a new method of balancing the wheels and tires all contribute to less NVH (noise, vibration, harshness), meaning a quieter cabin.
When we got home, we sighed with satisfaction in our driveway, and then gulped in surprise at the gas gauge. The 4.6-liter engine is EPA rated at 12 miles per gallon city and 16 highway (compared to the 13/17 of the 4.0-liter, 188-horsepower engine it replaced), and we suspect on this run it was closer to 12, on premium fuel. The engine may be new to the Discovery, and may have modern components, but the basic architecture can be traced to its 1960's GM roots. Bottom line: Discovery gulps gas.
The suspension has been tweaked with different bushings and retuned shocks and springs, in pursuit of straight-line handling with less wandering and pitching. We were still kept pretty busy making almost constant steering corrections, driving over those curves in the wind, but none of the input had to be sudden or urgent. This may not sound like that's saying much, but it's easy to imagine things being a lot worse in such a situation. Our Discovery HSE was equipped with the magical Active Cornering Enhancement, which uses lightning-quick hydraulic actuators to reduce body lean during cornering, but all our curves were fairly sweeping, so that probably wasn't a factor in the good handling that night.
