Capital gains - Range Rover’s nod to four London boroughs

Anybody who’s lived in London for more than a matter of months will understand the power of a postcode. It can carry as much weight as your job title and reveal all anyone needs to know about your personality before you can utter the word ‘Portobello’. Land Rover understands this perfectly. After all, this is the marque that gave us the sumptuously appointed, limited-edition Range Rover Westminster as far back as 2002, which was the first and only London borough to find its way into Range Rover nomenclature. Until now.

Fresh out of Jaguar Land Rover come no less than four new-edition Range Rovers named after an array of London boroughs: the £47,000 Range Rover Evoque Hoxton Edition; the £60,000 Range Rover Velar Belgravia Edition; the £88,000 Range Rover Sport Battersea Edition, and, finally, the new Range Rover Westminster Edition, which arrives later this year.

Inspired by the delights of London’s most influential neighbourhoods, each edition comes with unique trim, badges and contrast stitching on the seats, to name but a few styling and trim tweaks. All are available as a plug-in hybrid, with the ‘Battersea’ Range Rover Sport leading the charge with a full 73 miles of electric range. Even the most junior of the London editions, the ‘Hoxton’ Evoque, has 37 miles of electric range, which is enough to circumnavigate the capital on the north and south circular in near silence, should you wish to.

“It has always been the spiritual vehicle to signal success.”

Created with Range Rover’s target demographic in mind for each model, the Evoque is squarely aimed at the “innovative and trendsetting” East London creative communities, while the Velar is hoping to catch the eye of those London dwellers with an “unwavering attention to design detail”. As for the Sport, it reflects Battersea’s “spirit of reinvention”, while the full-size Range Rover Westminster will “pay homage to the epicentre of British leadership and heritage”. Expect classic design cues, but let’s hope the politicians have steered clear of any spec decisions.

“Each borough we drew inspiration from served as a vibrant muse – chosen for its rich British heritage, iconic modern architecture, or its role as an epicentre of London’s creative scene,” says Hannah Custance, Range Rover’s materiality manager. “Through our craft in materiality design, we sought to encapsulate the spirit of these culturally significant neighbourhoods through thoughtful, refined details in each Edition.”

While all Range Rovers will comfortably take on rutted off-road tracks and wade through water, the reality is that most spend their time crawling the streets of the capital and similarly sized cities. As far back as 1999, Land Rover pulled the covers off the Range Rover Linley edition, which “embodied Mayfair sophistication” when it was suitably unveiled by Viscount Linley in Park Lane. Then came the first Westminster edition model in 2002 based on the P38 Range Rover, followed the launch of the new Velar in 2017 at London’s Design Museum and the 50th anniversary of the Range Rover in 2020, which incorporated Savile Row tailor Henry Poole & Co custom fabric into the interior. While the Range Rover has always been the spiritual vehicle to signal success on London’s streets, it’s now addressing the matter, quite literally.