Triple test: Volvo XC90 vs Audi Q7 vs Land Rover Discovery - Top Gear
We may be deep in the heart of Wales, but the Discovery is the only car we bother doing any off-road stuff with. After all, who buys an SUV for its off-roading ability. However, if you genuinely are a green-laner, horsebox-towist or adventure-traveller and those activities are your absolute priority, buy the Land Rover Discovery. But we all know that most Discovery owners have never so much as twiddled the Terrain Response dial beyond grass/gravel/snow. They want a big, safe car because the lives of the people they care about are at stake (and yes, I do appreciate the irony of buying an inherently less stable car for safety reasons). SUVs are where you put the things you want to keep safe and out of harm’s way. Precious stuff like kids and dogs and other breakables. Volvo makes safe cars. But even Swedish safety wasn’t cool until the XC90 came along. No one without a tweed affliction would be seen dead in one. Then, back in 2002, the XC90 arrived and overnight Volvo became a different company. Here was a car with all the people-carrier smarts of a Renault Espace, but built into an SUV, a car that people actually wanted to be seen in. And by Volvo, too, so you knew your bairns would be safe. Source: www.topgear.com
