2018 Range Rover Velar Review: Star Child

I’ve always admired salesmen. Not specifically car salesmen, but the kind of folks who travel around the country, selling chrome-laden blenders or something. The sort of fellow who could sell ice to an Inuit, if you will. It seems as if Land Rover needs a car in the $50-80k price bracket the way England needs more clouds and rain. A quick visit to the manufacturer’s website reveals that it’s not at all difficult to spec either the lower-tier Evoque or the bourgie Range Rover Sport to cover that sector.

But if you look beyond the number at the bottom of the window sticker, there is in fact a luxury SUV missing from the Land Rover lineup. Fitting between those two modern icons of the brand not in terms of price, but in size, is the model in question today. Entirely new for this model year, the Range Rover Velar poses a curious question. Can Land Rover pull off the car it didn’t need to make, and sell it to the buyer who didn’t know they needed it?

Forza Motorsport 7 Is the Best Console Racing Game We’ve Played

My first experience with racing games came via the alien-looking three-pronged controller of a Nintendo 64. My dad and I would play Mario Kart 64, and I’d tease him when he’d slip on bananas and bump into the wall. Fast forward a good number of years, and I’ve just handed Dad the controller for Forza Motorsport 7. He’s still bumping walls, in this case because he braked too late, overwhelmed the front tires on a Porsche 911 GT2 RS, and crashed hard enough to void the new production-car king of the ’Ring of both its side mirrors—plus its rear wing. Welcome to racing games in 2017.

EnRoute Auto Podcast Episode 2: I’m Buying a 10-Year-Old Econobox!

There’s a hatchback-sized hole in my life that can only be filled by a dirt cheap decade-old Honda. Plus, we talk Ford Mustang, the Polestar 1, and spec out our own example of Porsche’s latest 911, the Carrera T.

Check out our Carrera T build here.

EnRoute Auto Podcast Episode 1!

We talk Ferrari Portofino, Forza Motorsport 7 demo, and find our girl Sasha Gorski the perfect post-grad automobile.