Land Rover LR3 HSE
If I were to have an SUV, this might be it.
 |
BABY ON BOARD: The Land Rover LR3 HSE comfortably totes a family
of four and keeps drinks cold in the armrest.
photography courtesy of Land Rover USA |
Full disclosure: I’m one of those civic-driving SOBs that SUV drivers disdain. I’m the guy who zips past them as they attempt to build up momentum, then ricochets into another lane to avoid dawdling DART buses. I arrive first while averaging 29 mpg.
Regardless, the 2009 Land Rover LR3 HSE has rousted me from my smugdom: If I were to have an SUV, this might be it.
The reason: the LR3 doesn’t float down the road like a conventional SUV; taking it out for a drive is less like a public-works project and more like a jaunt. Once you get past its Johnson Space Center-inspired dashboard, that is.
This vehicle will do things that others only dream of. A set of knobs to the right of the driver’s seat adjusts the Land Rover’s suspension and traction controls in a multitude of variations. Behind it is a refrigerated armrest, which would hold at least four, 12-ounce cans of whatever. (Upon this discovery, I closed the armrest and felt a wave of Lutheran guilt wash over me.)
The model I drove had TV monitors built into the front-seat headrests. They were for the vehicle’s DVD system, which I couldn’t quite figure out in time for our trip to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
The best way to test the LR3’s people-moving abilities, I figured, would be to haul my wife, our newborn, and my mother-in-law out to DFW to pick up a friend who was in town to visit said baby. The worry was whether there’d be enough room for four adults plus the chunky baby seat (baby included).
Somehow, that middle row swallowed my wife, daughter and mother-in-law. Still, there was a problem: When I moved the driver’s seat forward to accommodate the baby seat, my knees jammed into the dashboard. (We didn’t need to use the pop-up third row, which I later deemed OK for short hops.)
A second mishap involved my mother-in-law being pinched on the arm by her seatbelt. That sneaky LR3: always trying to score points.
 |
THE LOWDOWN
Sticker price: $58,000 (est.)
Engine: 300 HP 4.4-L V-8
MPG: 12 city, 17 highway
|
