Discovered! The all-new Discovery

This is the all-new Land Rover Discovery, expected to go on sale in New Zealand in 2005.

It was photographed in a side street near the carmaker's headquarters in the British Midlands, wearing an almost non-existent disguise

Few details of the new four-wheel-drive model are available but the pictures show it borrows from the styling cues of the all-new Range Rover.

The rear door remains hinged on the side, although it has more rear glass than the current Discovery.

Inside, the centre console has cupholders and sports an automatic transission with manual mode to the left of the gate.

Rotary dials to engage low-ratio gearing and changes to ride height sit at the driver's left hand.

The new Discovery will be the first from new owners Ford. It isn't expected to be such a iconoclast as Ford searches for more mainstream markets and Land Rovers grow closer to their new Ford cousins.

It will be powered by a range of new Ford engines, including petrol and diesel V6 units and a premium V8.

Some of these engines will find their way into the current model as Ford is running short of the BMW-sourced engines.

The Discovery is one of a handful of Land Rovers Ford is looking at. It has talked of developing two replacement models of the rugged Defender.

One would be a traditional model aimed at military and agricultural applications, and the other a "softer" version for the popular lifestyle market.

The replacement for the traditional model is code-named L50. A prototype was reportedly ready for trials many months before Ford bought Land Rover from BMW.

But BMW apparently had doubts about developing a single Defender model for both military and lifestyle use and put the dual-purpose project on hold.

But now, according to reports, Land Rover wants to break into the fashionable lifestyle market.

The plan is to replace the Defender with two separate models that look alike but have different target markets. The two would have different suspension systems, one underpinned by beam axles for off-road ruggedness, the other using an independent set-up for moderate work.