The Land Rover Discovery Sport may be pitched as an SUV that’s not afraid of going off-road, but drivers should be careful how far they’re willing to go in a baby Disco.
It’s not that the Discovery Sport is not capable, but it can never compare to the rugged Defender. Nick Rufford from The Sunday Times found that out when he drove the baby Land Rover in Iceland, a country that offers breathtaking scenery and plenty of challenging terrain for off-road enthusiasts.
Land Rover says the Discovery Sport can scale gradients of up to 45 degrees, but Rufford found a gradient in Iceland that the baby Disco couldn’t manage, so he had to give up. He then took it to a sandy and snowy beach where he played around for a while until the Discovery Sport got stuck. Luckily, a good old Defender was around to help.
In the baby Land Rover’s defense, it has to be said that it does not feature low-range mode. I guess the moral of this story is you can’t go quite everywhere in the Discovery Sport – better avoid Iceland.