Re-discover the Land Rover Discovery with the Landmark and Graphite limited editions

With so much recent focus on Evoque and bigger Range Rovers, and what with the smaller Discovery Sport part-sharing its name, the Land Rover Discovery is due for its attention turn.

Thanks to refreshes like the facelift of early 2014, co-inciding with a revert from naming as Discovery 4 back to just Discovery badging, the big all-rounder Land Rover is kept looking crisp and aging well, despite having been on the market for a decade already.  Could these special editions signal the arrival of an all-new Discovery in 2016?

Landmark and Graphite – aptly-named Discoveries

Available to order from October 2015 and to deliver early in 2016, Land Rover South Africa gave details on this pair of Discovery limited editions, created with the intention of giving the Land Rover Discovery more on-road presence and comfort.

Discovery Landmark

Starting off a high base of top HSE specification level, the Discovery Landmark gets new interior and exterior features to create a more unique look and feel with a set of full-length roof rails in a bright finish (highlighting the trademark stepped-roof Discovery design) and black paint applied to its grille, fender vents and the mirror housings, complemented by silver DISCOVERY bonnet and tailgate name badges, rounded off by 20-inch split-spoke design rims.

The fender also sports icons of mountains on a discreet plaque, with the same mountain icons and name LANDMARK on the tailgate.

The Discovery Landmark also comes standard with Tow Hitch Assist, which acts as an extra pair of eyes when reversing your Discovery to hook up the to-be-towed trailer.

The colour in the pictures is Zanzibar, previously available for a limited time on Evoque, and not available on any other Discovery, and the other 4 colours available are monotone colours in Yulong White, Indus Silver, Waitoma Grey and Santorini Black.

The interior gets Windsor leather seats and the Extended Leather Pack, furnishing its dashboard, fascia (console) and door casings, limited purposefully to 3 colourways (interior colour trim combinations in Land Rover language) namely Ebony (black) or Almond (beige) or Tan – offered for the first time on Discovery – complemented by Ebony door casings and fascia.

Discovery Graphite

The success of the optional Black Pack is the starting point for the Discovery Graphite.  A Graphite grey finish is applied to the fender vents and grille, while the grille has a gloss black and lighter grey frame, to blend with existing grey door handles and Graphite grey DISCOVERY badging for the bonnet and tailgate.

The Discovery Graphite has 19-inch 7-spoke split alloy wheels, exclusive to it, in high-gloss dark grey.  The paint is not available in grey only, but a selection of 9 body colours, and 3 colourways.

Clever technologies

The Discovery already comes with the acclaimed Terrain Response and Hill Descent Control off-road terrain assistance systems as standard, with Wade Sensing technology which uses sensors to measure the water depth and relays it onto the display screen, and will warn you if the water is too deep to cross through.

The Discovery is a full 7-seater with a 3500kg (yes 3.5 ton) towing capacity, with Trailer Stability Assist.

Its engine choices are 3.0 Supercharged V6 (badged SCV6) of 250kW/450Nm, or the popular and more economical and torquey 183kW/600Nm 3.0 SDV6.  An 8-speed automatic with low range for serious 4x4-ing is standard.

Local pricing has not been announced, though budget to pay more than the current R1.025 million price tags on Discovery HSE models.