We need to talk about the Land Rover Discovery’s rear end

After months of teases, the 2017 Land Rover Discovery has been revealed at a special event on the eve of the Paris Motor Show. It featured Bear Grylls, Zara Phillips and a record-breaking Lego model of Tower Bridge.

The car is a huge deal for Land Rover, as evidenced by the huge marketing and PR budget that has gone into its launch. But reaction online has been varied. Our first impression was “it looks exactly as we expected”, but then we started to look a bit closer.

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Top Gear’s Chris Harris was amongst the first to point out that it looks a little, er, odd…

New Disco will be sold out for a few years already. But anyone else think it looks a bit, well, awkward from some angles?

— chris harris (@harrismonkey) September 28, 2016

And even SsangYong UK’s CEO Paul Williams pointed out the resemblance between it and the Tivoli XLV.

New #land rover discovery clearly a nod to our #Tivoli XLV in the styling @SYMotorUK @_HonestJohn pic.twitter.com/6yy0z3wsg1

— Paul Williams (@PaulWills0461) September 28, 2016

But then it hit us. It’s that rear end.

Apparently design chief Gerry McGovern admits it’s a “radical departure in design”. To us, well, it looks a bit awkward. So what’s so odd about it?

Maybe it’s the fact that it doesn’t have a split tailgate, Range Rover-styley. Apparently they tried that…

Early development @LandRover_UK #Discovery 5 still had split tailgate. But it was dropped because it looked ‘a bit crap’. #ParisMotorShow

— John McIlroy (@johnmcilroy) September 28, 2016

Or is it the fact that the number plate is offset, mimicking the original Discovery’s side-hinged tailgate?

Maybe we’re being harsh on the new Discovery – as Harris points out, it’s sure to be yet another hit for JLR. We’ll reserve our final judgement until we’ve seen it up close and personal at the show – but we’d love to here your thoughts. Is it us, or does it look a bit awkward? Comment below.