The headline change to the Range Rover Evoque for the 2014 model year is the availability of one of the world's first nine-speed automatic gearboxes. Yes, I said a nine-speed gearbox. You can use steering-wheel paddles to change gear if you insist, but that's a lot of cogs to shuffle. Thank the Lord you can leave it in Drive or Sport and it'll do all the work for you.According to Land Rover, the box will change gear so fast as to be "below the threshold of perception". Well that might be so while you're on the move, but it's a bit slow on the uptake from being stationary.It doesn't take long to select the right gear for a quick standing start, but it feels like an age to shift between forward and reverse gears. If you stop on a down-slope and have to reverse back up the hill, there's enough slack time for the car to start rolling for a few inches before the gear engages. The same is true if you're reversing down a hill, then swapping into drive to go forward. It's a bit alarming the first time.Out on the go, however, you get the full benefit of the combination of, in this case, the well-established 187bhp engine with that all-new transmission whose ratios are close enough to keep within about 300rpm either side of optimal power. They make the car feel responsive to the point of being sporting.The vehicle reviewed here was fitted with so many optional extras that it felt like a concept car packed to the gunwales with all the latest technology to come out of Jaguar Land Rover.I stress this because if you've ever driven a top-flight Jaguar XJ, you'll be in familiar surroundings in this Evoque. It's clear that much of the kit from the executive saloon has been repackaged in this compact SUV. So if you think £56,009 (its price as tested) is a lot to pay for a three-door off-roader that's smaller than a Freelander, it's maybe not bad when you think it seems to actually have more techy kit than a Jag costing £30,000 more.One of the options was Adaptive Dynamics (£1174), which gives the suspension a fair compromise between pliancy and support. Over the worst potholes and patches it feels a tad firm, but I'd rather have that than lose the sang-froid of level cornering.I also took the car for some relatively safe but challenging off-roading on a motocross course. The Evoque has the push-button selector for the type of terrain you're planning to cross. I stabbed it into "mud and ruts" and plunged into the challenge. In locked four-wheel drive it rocked over cross-axle humps, rumbled happily along pitted and rutted mud tracks, took a slow crawl over an break-over ridge without grounding, and climbed a very steep clay and gravel hill without the first sign of scrabbling.Water Wade Sensing, part of the £700 optional Intelligent Pack, tells you with a little graphic display how deep the water is under your car and how far it is from being too deep. I tried it out on a river ford and, fascinating as it was, I can't help but think it would have been more useful if it could have told me how deep the water was in front before I plunged into it.The automatic box kept the gearing low enough to feel like the car had an old-fashioned low-range transfer box, and the short wheelbase combined with minimal overhangs front and rear kept the rubber in the rubble and the metal in the air. No danger of damage or drama.Back out on the road, the Intelligent Pack also includes lane departure warning which, when switched on, gives a rumble on the steering wheel every time you stray over a white line on the road. There are flashing yellow graphics on the door-mirrors when something's coming up fast from behind to overtake, and a constant light when something's in your over-shoulder blind spot.I've had the car for about a week and covered around 750 English autumn miles. I've played for hours with the technology and been surprised to conclude that I don't actually think it's overburdened with gadgets, even though it has £4650 worth of optional extras contained in the Lux Pack.Fair enough, you could get by without most of them - TV monitors in the back seats for instance - but I do like things like the push-button powered tailgate, the wonderful and utterly huge panoramic roof (it doesn't open up to let the weather in, but it makes the cabin a bright and airy place when the blind is rolled back) and the adaptive headlamps that turn into the corners as the steering wheel is spun, until they're supplemented by fill-in sidelights that spark up in tight turns.If you're crap at driving, it'll be comforting to know the car can not only bay-and-parallel park for you at the push of a button, but also get you safely out of the slot when you want to go home.If you get into trouble, there are the equivalent of two community alarm buttons in the car. Set up into the ceiling are small hatch-covered apertures. Inside one is the SOS button you stab when you're dangling upside down in the straps and wondering what went wrong. Inside the other is the less urgent Land Rover Assistance button to poke if you just break down.This three-door has plenty of space in all four of the main seats (all of which are leather and heated or cooled), but getting out of the back requires a modicum of agility. With the front electric seats tilted and motored as far forward as possible, I managed an exit with no more than a stumble. Mother got stuck and it took some lateral thinking to extricate her.Now the kids have grown and flown, this version of the 2014 three-door Evoque is a car I could happily live with. It's not got the space to be as practical as most 4x4s and that could make you ask whether the price can be justified, but this is an exercise in style and prestige as much as an example of form following function.It's cheaper and more practical than an expensive sportscar, yet it carries just as much kudos. What we need next is a soft-top version. Engine 2179cc, 4 cylinders Power 187bhp Transmission 9-speed automatic Fuel/CO2 48.7mpg / 153g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 8.5 seconds Top speed 121mph Price £45,655 Details correct at publication date
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