The long-awaited Land Rover Discovery launched

When an important and iconic car such as the Land Rover Discovery is done right, it can naturally become one of the most interesting and motivating cars amongst its competitive peers. But that's a tricky proposition in and of itself because the margin for error between trying too hard and not trying at all is fatally slim.

This is why the British carmaker Land Rover is a legitimate leader when it comes to creating a Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) that's sincere, empowering and - quite honestly - writ large with a down-to-earth and sensible ethos.

More importantly, it doesn't seem like they tried overly hard just to please you for the sake of increasing sales numbers. On the other hand, it's also clear the guys at Land Rover didn't sleep through the entire creation process of the all new Disco because the SUV evidently has the style to match its off-road substance.

The total of 340km of driving on and off-road so far with the 3.0-litre TDV6 Diesel HSE Luxury has proven just that. The only question that remains is whether or not the petrol variant, which we will be driving as well, can be just as capable.

On first acquaintance, the Mk5 Disco appears to be uber luxurious and can be easily mistaken for a more expensive and sumptuous Range Rover. This fact should come as no surprise since - unlike its predecessor - the Disco shares its aluminium underpinnings with the Range Rover as well as the Range Rover Sport.

This has resulted in a significant weight loss of up to 480kg over its outgoing model, which lends a big helping hand to bringing down emissions and fuel consumption for every variant of the SUV.

Other significant changes include the interesting way of controlling the rear seats with the use of either a smartphone app, via the 10-inch InControl Touch Pro screen, or through the straightfoward buttons located at the boot area or on the seats.

Have all seats in place and the car will genuinely hold seven adults with suffcient head and legroom while still providing a usable 258 litres of luggage space. Knock row three down and your boot space increases to 1,137 litres. This space can be increased to a whopping 2,406 litres should you choose to fold down both rows two and three.

Also interesting, the typically Land Rover-ish two-piece bootlid is now a thing of a past, with a one-piece composite tailgate that's capable of supporting up to 300kg of weight taking its place.

At launch, there are two variants: 3.0-litre TDV6 Diesel and the 3.0-litre Si6 petrol. The former will push out 258bhp and a massive 600Nm of torque while the latter, a familiar engine that can also be found on the Jaguar F-PACE, is good for 340bhp and 450Nm of twisting force.

A total of three derivatives of the new Discovery will be coming to our shores - HSE, HSE Luxury and the First Edition. The 3.0-litre TDV6 Diesel will be arriving in Singapore some time in August this year, followed by the petrol variant, although potential buyers can still order the petrol-powered SUV if they're keen. The 3.0-litre diesel model will set you back $323,900 (excluding options and including COE), with an OMV of approximately $70,000.

Exact price for the petrol model is still unknown at press time.