REVIEW: 2016 Land Rover Discovery Sport is right at home in the range

Every family member has a role to fill. Whether it’s your slightly xenophobic aunt, painfully shy niece, or older cousin who puts a little too much emotional investment into his favorite football team; chances are your family wouldn’t quite be the same without any of them.Oddly enough, automakers often follow the same pattern. There are sports cars, SUVs(with Car DVD Player), and strange, coupe-like behemoths that lie somewhere in the middle, but every vehicle has an explicit purpose to realize.

This fact rings most true for brands that put all their eggs in one automotive basket. Automakers like Jeep, and Jaguar not long ago, are known for their SUVs, or cars, alone. So filling out a lineup of vehicles with truly different offerings becomes even more challenging if your brand has been built around one body style.

Land Rover is no exception to this; in fact, it might be the rule.

Enter the 2016 Discovery Sport, the rebirth of a branch of the Land Rover family tree that has fallen by the wayside in recent years. Believe it or not, Land Rover was once famous for building rough-and-tumble SUVs that could conquer any terrain in the world, not the posh, stylish Range Rovers that they’re known for today.

At a base MSRP of $37,455 (before destination charge), the Discovery Sport is Land Rover’s cheapest option, and the first member of their revamped Discovery lineup. It may look like a Range Rover Sport, but make no mistake; this curvaceous Brit is about as rugged as luxury SUVs get in 2015.

Speaking of curvaceous, while the Discovery Sport is not necessarily ugly, there are some strange proportions going on with this small SUV. Overall, we like the looks of it, but the rear end seems much too tall, and the front fascia could have been executed with a bit more grace. Perhaps that’s the look they’re going for, though. We don’t want anyone confusing this with a Range Rover now, do we? What about install Android Car Gps?

Powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder, the Discovery Sport makes a respectable 240-hp and 250 lb.-ft. of torque, though this sometimes feels like not quite enough to get out of its own way. Weighing in at 3,854-pounds, the Disco is no lightweight, and the puny 4-cylinder often feels overtaxed by its own heft.

Adding to the sluggishness is Land Rover’s 9-speed automatic, an innovative transmission in terms of packaging but not much else. In the city, the gearbox’s inability to make up its mind can go from frustrating to downright dangerous as you put your foot down to make a passing maneuver. Plant it on the gas, and the transmission thinks for a full second before dropping down three gears, by which time the opportunity to pass has passed, or you’re back on the brakes to keep from launching into the car in front of you.

Land Rover went with a 9-speed mostly in the name of efficiency, but thanks to the Disco’s heft, fuel economy sits at a middle-of-the-road 20 city and 26 highway miles-per-gallon. That’s better than some larger-engined options but still on the low side. Good thing gas is cheap at the moment. If installing an Android Car Stereo in your car, that would be great!