The future of Discovery

Phil Popham, Land Rover's managing director, is helping turn the brand into a truly global company. Photo / Supplied

Back in 1989 a young Land Rover executive, on the job for hardly a year, joined a crowd around the company's first all-new product in almost 20 years, admiring its distinctive lines and rugged construction.

Now, as managing director of the company, Phil Popham is presiding over the worldwide introduction of the fourth generation of that vehicle, the Discovery. Two decades on, it stands in sharp contrast to the original that was under development while Popham did his business studies degree at the University of Aston.

The evolution of Discovery during his years with the company says much about where Land Rover's been and where it's going.

The original Disco relied on mechanical solutions for its off-road abilities, whereas the newcomer leans heavily on electronics.

The original had, typically for a large-ish vehicle of the day, the environmental footprint of a toxic elephant; today's Disco dances to a different beat despite being way more powerful.

The original relied largely on its brute strength to protect occupants in a crash; the Gen 4 cossets them in airbags and crumple zones. Although reasonably luxurious, the original was rough around the edges; the newcomer has been prodded far upmarket, its fit and finish micrometer perfect.

New Zealand won't see the Discovery 4 until the New Year, as part of a new-model blowout that includes significantly upgraded versions of the Range Rover and the smaller Range Rover Sport. Despite its Range Rover name, the Sport is built on a version of the Discovery's chassis.

But while the vehicles are still far from our shores, Popham's been down, a one-man advance party from head office checking out the health of the local market during a seven-hour stopover on the way to Australia. He is looking so fresh after a dash across the international dateline from the US that the better story might be how he achieves this, not about the vehicles.

Once happy selling to countries marked in Empire red on the world map, with forays into America, today's Land Rover has its corporate eye set firmly on a true world market. "Part of our strategy is to have a global footprint," says Popham.

"We're in 165 markets now (the United Nations has 192 member states), so we're not overly dependent on any region or market," he beams. In 2007, Land Rover's peak year and with Popham just a year into the MD's job, the company sold 35,000 vehicles in markets it wasn't even in five years previously.

The diversification helped Land Rover weather the recession better than some. In particular, the BRIC markets - Brazil, Russia, India and China - have been fairly kind to the company. "China is on fire again and is the one market where we'll grow year-on-year," enthuses Popham, who has worked in South Africa, US and Britain. On the other hand, he says Russia went into recession quite late, "but the effect of liquidity and the oil price drop caused the industry there to nosedive 50 to 70 per cent in the last few months." Those fires will ignite to make China Land Rover's third biggest market this year, after Western Europe including Britain, and the US. Italy and Russia vie for number four and five.

So now, it seems, things are looking better. "There are signs of stability rather than the green shoots of recovery," says Popham. "We've gone from last year when we missed our global forecasts for nine consecutive months because we couldn't see where the bottom of the market was, to hitting our global forecasts every month this year.

"We've had some conservative planning around that, but with the stability we're seeing in Western Europe, Britain and US, we can pretty well predict what we're going to sell, and build on that."

But will a post-recovery world want the same kind of premium vehicles they embraced before the recession? "The world will continue to be a more affluent place even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment," Popham says.

"People will become more brand-savvy and attitudes will change around the cost of ownership ... because of the speed and depth of the recession."

Cue Land Rover's efforts at providing more sustainable, fuel-efficient vehicles with lower ownership costs. "We're working with lowering weight, developing more economical engines, and introducing a new small Range Rover [the Freelander-based SUV currently known as the LRX]."

Land Rover is casting a wide net in its search for technologies of the future. "There's no silver bullet," says Popham, "no single piece of technology that's going to be the answer. The likes of Toyota and Lexus have been very successful at pushing hybrids and there's no doubt hybrid has a role to play, but it's also an expensive technology."

Popham reckons Land Rover has to get the volume part of its product lineup to achieve better fuel economy and lower emissions without costly technology.

"The approach we're taking to that is lowering weight," he says. None of the range of vehicles is particularly light. "If you can take substantial weight out of your product you can put in those more-efficient smaller engines, and that's easiest to do when you're changing the whole architecture of your car.

"For 2010 our diesel engines are more powerful and more use less fuel, but they're basically the same architecture. When we do change those vehicles, I can guarantee they'll be substantially lighter than today, but no less capable, as our customers want the same packaging and usable space as today's products. We're working on all sorts of new technology, either with our advanced engineering team or through our suppliers. They're looking at stuff up to 15 years in the future."

The original Discovery was essentially a utilitarian Defender with a sexier body, and had tremendous off-road ability. Today, off-road enthusiasts covet it as a cheap, uncomplicated but highly able plaything. Popham acknowledges this heritage, and says the Gen 4 model - and Land Rover products of the future - must enjoy the "greatest breadth of capability of the class they're in".

But this may not mean every one will have the ultimate in off-road ability.

"As we develop our cars we need to understand what our customers use them for, and engineer them appropriately for the role," says Popham.

"The new small Range Rover will not be a boulder crawler because people will not want to use it for that, whereas a Defender replacement would need to be.

"When we design the [full-sized] Range Rover replacement, we must consider whether it needs to go over boulders. It certainly will need to go over sand because a lot of our customers, especially in the Middle East, will use it extensively in the sand. It will need to be good on wet grass, where it also gets a lot of use. It's all about relevant technology and being a leader in that relevant, usable technology."

Discovery, he says, created a style for the segment right from the start and was responsible for some firsts including the first 4WD with ABS and airbags. That's the way he wants things to continue at the house of the green oval badge.

"I think Discovery's a really good example of how Land Rover has evolved by listening to its customers," says Popham.

"It's form through function. It has its shape because of what it was designed to do. And we think it's the most-awarded car in automotive history, with something like 120-plus awards. At least I think it does. I keep on saying that and it keeps getting printed, but no manufacturer has ever challenged it."