Overview
The Land Rover Discovery Sport joined the brand’s lineup of SUVs back in 2014 and secured the best-selling title in its recent 2017 model year. It is also the first unibody SUV from the brand to carry the Discovery nameplate. Despite being built on a unibody frame, the JLR D8/LR-MS platform has been tuned extensively by JLR for off-roading purposes and it gives the Discovery Sport some impressive strength while venturing into unpaved or non-existent roads apart from the electronics alone. The SUV also offers an optional 8 seating capacity but it does miss out on active safety and advanced driver safety techs as standard and getting them from the list of optional extras is one pricey affair too.
The 2018 Land Rover Discovery arrives with some significant upgrades including a couple of turbocharged four-pot oil burners that offer significantly more oomph than the last year’s model’s powertrain. As standard, the Discovery gets a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-4 motor that puts out 237 horsepower along with 251 lb-ft of torque. The optional powertrain is the same unit with a higher state of tune to deliver 286 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque. Both the motors are paired to a standard 9-speed ZF automatic transmission that sends power to all the wheels via a Haldex AWD system. Rivaling the Discovery Sport in its class are the BMW X3, the Audi Q5, and the Lexus NX.
