Children design unique 2017 Land Rover Discovery

Land Rover engineers took their work home with them – and gave it to their children

2017 Land Rover Discovery testing
2017 Land Rover Discovery

Land Rover has today revealed more disguised teaser shots of the new 2017 Discovery large SUV. They show it wearing wacky camouflage designed by the children of Land Rover designers and engineers.

The ‘camouflage kids’ Discovery was created to reward the children involved in the development of the new SUV: “They don’t always realise it,” said chief engineer Alex Heslop, “but these kids have played a major role in developing the new Discovery.”

Land Rover bosses thus gave their kids, all aged between five and nine, an official job – create pictures that would go onto a special camouflage Discovery wrap.

They then attended a child-focused testing session to have a spin in the new Discovery during final development. They thus got to see all their signed pictures caked in mud.

Land Rover has now released a video showing them creating their pictures and later seeing them ‘in action’.

Such testing of course has serious intent, reckons Hislop. “There is no better insight into the needs of the modern family than the first-hand experience we glean at home.” Which is why the new Discovery has nine USB ports, secure storage for four iPads, and why “every seat has been designed to be the best seat in the house”.

Practicality and intelligent design has always been a key attribute of the Discovery. To win over traditional fans who find its sleek new sophistication challenging, the firm is thus keen to stress the Disco’s core values remain intact.

And it’s not just practicality that Land Rover’s been sweating on: the firm has also today released a video of Discovery testing, showing extreme conditions, plenty of drifting and some of the 294 development vehicles that have been used to prove the new model ahead of launch – and even this only commenced once a full programme of virtual testing had been completed…

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Richard Aucock
Richard Aucockhttps://www.richardaucock.co.uk/
Richard is director at Motoring Research. He has been with us since 2001, and has been a motoring journalist even longer. He won the IMCO Motoring Writer of the Future Award in 1996 and the acclaimed Sir William Lyons Award in 1998. Both awards are run by the Guild of Motoring Writers and Richard is currently vice chair of the world's largest organisation for automotive media professionals. Richard is also a juror and Steering Committee director for World Car Awards and the UK juror for the AUTOBEST awards.

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