The Range Rover is often considered the original luxury off roader (although fans of the Jeep Grand Wagoneer might dispute this!), with features including leather seats, climate control, satellite navigation and so on as standard on the top models. The original version at it's introduction in 1970 was a far more basic car, with few creature comforts, but was a big step up from the austere Land Rover favoured by armed forces and farmers the world over.
In 1994, this car, the second generation Range Rover was introduced. It's styling was an evolution of the original, and it came with a range of V8 petrol engines, and turbo diesels. The top of the range car was the 4.6 HSE, which had a huge 4.6 litre petrol V8. It also had air suspension, leather seats and much more besides as standard. Cheap to buy and run it was not! New, it was in the same price territory as a BMW 7 series, Mercedes Benz S-Class or a top end Jaguar. The large V8 struggles to return more than single figure fuel consumption when worked hard, especially around town. Like all Land Rover's it does have excellent off road capability, but as it is such an expensive car, few owners use them for anything else except on road driving.
This model was one of the first releases by AUTOart, which came onto the 1:18th scale market in 1999. It is a nice model, but compared to a more recent AUTOart releases (as of the time of writing this, Jan 2006) it lacks brake, wheel and engine detail, and the bodywork is not as good as newer releases, with a poorly fitting drivers door, and crude "dogleg" hinges for the front doors. All the doors as well as the bonnet and two piece tailgate open. Interior detail is quite good and the metallic red paint looks good.
