Yahoo Autos The 2024 Range Rover Velar Remains a Fancy Confection
While at dinner one evening during the media drives for the 2024 Range Rover Velar, the server informed us the chef had prepared a special dessert: popcorn soufflé. I believe one should try things if they sound interesting, no matter what they're called. Dubious marketing occasionally hides mastery.
The server brought the dessert, its delicate white cap poking out of the traditional French soufflé dish. I tasted a spoonful of cake and the creamy pink sauce inside that bore bits of popcorn like amber in some florid tar. I wasn't prepared for the medley of flavors. It wasn't bad, and I'm glad I tried it, but I didn't have any more. It was a unique, perplexing confection, much like the Range Rover Velar.
Let's work backward with the SUV, starting with the confection. Look at the Velar, Range Rover's first public entry into what it terms "reductionism." We've called the car fetching, tailored, fine-looking, and dripping with curb appeal. It is without doubt more artfully modeled than its competitors, deftly nodding to its brand's aspirational flagship. In fact, the Velar might be better proportioned than the Range Rover it encourages its buyers to yearn for.
Tweaks for 2024
For the new year, the Velar makes many of the same changes wrought upon the 2024 Range Rover Evoque. A new grille sits between slender pixel headlights, the 268 LEDs in each headlight adjusting their illumination to shine all available light on the road, not into the eyes of oncoming drivers. In back, reshaped LED taillight signatures sit above a new rear bumper and redrawn diffuser insert that eliminates openings for the exhaust finishers.
The exterior color palette makes way for Metallic Varesine Blue and Premium Metallic Zadar Grey. Darker trim pieces provide increased contrast, and new wheel designs come in new finishes.
The 2021 Velar introduced the dished steering wheel and palm shifter the Evoque just received for 2024, so cabin changes are even more reductive. The main change is the new 11.4-inch curved touchscreen replacing the previous dual screens, and the eradication of every knob and button. On the infotainment display, three ever-present shortcut menus line the sides and the bottom, doing their part to keep 80 percent of functions within two taps of the home screen.
Leather interiors are offered in the new hues Cloud, Deep Garnet, and Raven Blue. Those who find hides distasteful can select a fabric substitute. Available only in Cloud Gray for the U.S. market, the wool blend on the seat uppers and door cards gets paired with a new ultrafiber polyurethane in more trafficked areas like seat bolsters and the steering wheel. Trim pieces come in either Shadow Gray Ash Veneer, dark anodized aluminum, or light anodized aluminum.
Serenity takes a step up with new active noise-cancellation programming. Lastly, the Cabin Air Purification Plus option integrates a carbon-dioxide sensor to deter driver fatigue. As we said of the Evoque, this is a sensational-looking cabin, sure to appeal to shoppers who ogle homes fashioned from acres of blond wood, glass, and a T-square.
