Velar: Fabulous Car Launched in Fantastic Location

Stories by Bennett Oghifo

Western Cape in South Africaholds some priceless legendary stories and there are real-time structures and monuments to support these accounts.

These stories are incomplete without the fantasy of the Range Rover Velar, the newest addition to the bloodline, which sprang to life off and on road as it trails the landmarks of Western Cape.

The impressive media launch of the Velar by journalists from sub-Saharan Africa happened at The Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden that has over 150 sculptures, according to Hanle Hill, who gave an insightful and informative overview of the gardens and sculptor’s work.

Dylan Lewis has been living and working there for the last 50 years, and from humble beginnings he bought the farm, spread on 8 hectares.

As most people fall in love with the Velar, Lewis fell in love with the digger machine, which he used to sculpt the land and extended the water body. He now has the land looking like female sculptures lying on their sides against the masculine backdrop of the mountains. In fact, Lewis said the garden was created because of the mountains and that the garden was nothing without the mountains.

Landscaping of the garden was done in 2009 and the first plantings were done in 2011, making it a relatively young garden. His first pieces were animal/wildlife sculptures; of birds and on to the big cats, which dominated his life for years. He later moved to human form but he still finds that space, psychologically, between wild and tame. This is also the story of the Velar – off and on road.

“This is a fantastic location and it’s even a more fabulous vehicle,” said Mr. Nigel Clarke, the Sales Operations Director, Jaguar Land Rover, sub-Saharan Africa, of the Range Rover Velar, which is now in Sub-Sahara Africa.

The Velar is expected to leave the showroom quicker, said Clarke, prior to a tour of the arts garden and a drive of the Velar. Combined with a comprehensive restraints system that includes six airbags, and a suite of advanced driver assistance systems, including Adaptive Cruise Control with Queue Assist, the Velar integrates the latest safety technologies.

The Velar features a sophisticated all-wheel drive system, four-corner air suspension, class-leading ground clearance of 251mm (213mm when equipped with coil springs), class-leading wading depth of 650mm (600mm when equipped with coil springs) and Land Rover’s unmatched suite of traction technologies including Terrain Response 2 and All Terrain Progress Control.

The Velar – like all Range Rovers – offers world-class all-terrain capability.

Exceptional performance and efficiency comes from the range of four petrol and diesel powertrains, all matched to smooth-shifting ZF eight-speed automatic transmissions and all-wheel drive with Intelligent Driveline Dynamics.

Clean, refined Ingenium engines are offered in Velar, in both diesel and petrol form. A 2.0-litre, four-cylinder diesel engine produces 132kW and 430Nm, with CO2 emissions of just 142g/km. Two petrol Ingenium four-cylinder engines are also available in Velar, with outputs of 184kW and 365Nm, and 221kW and 400Nm.

The V6 diesel combines an extraordinary 700Nm of torque for effortless acceleration and off-road capability with CO2 emissions of only 167g/km. The 280kW supercharged V6 petrol engine combines exhilarating performance with a unique soundtrack and enables the Velar to reach 100km/h in only 5.7 seconds, before reaching an electronically-limited top speed of 250km/h.

The Velar and Velar R-Dynamic range comprise Standard, S, SE and HSE specifications. Customers can also specify Black and Premium exterior packs for an even more distinguished appearance. Customers can build their own Velar using the configurator on their market’s Land Rover website. All new Land Rover vehicles come with the Land Rover Five-Year Care Plan: a five-year/100 000km service plan, a five-year/100 000km maintenance plan and a five-year/100 000km warranty, as standard.

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