The 2018 Land Rover Discovery has arrived in Australia with prices starting at $65,960+ORC and running to $103,760+ORC.

THE 2018 LAND ROVER DISCOVERY has been launched to Australian motoring media this week with an official on-sale date of August 1. Practical Motoring drove the new Discovery at its international launch and you can read that HERE, and will have a local impression up before the end of this week.

Locally, the Land Rover Discovery is the brand’s best-selling product with, since 1991, 65,000 Land Rover Discoverys sold here (140,000 Land Rover vehicles in total). Indeed, Land Rover Australia’s marketing boss, Tim Krieger, speaking at the local launch said, “Disco is the centre of gravity for Land Rover Australia”.

The all-new Discovery, it isn’t being called Discovery 5 despite the last model being called Discovery 4 and the one before that being called Discovery 3, is priced from $65,960+ORC for a five-seat 132kW Td4 variant; $87,990+ORC for the 177kW Sd4 SE variant (seven seats) and $103,760+ORC for the 190kW SdV6 HSE variant (seven seats). While the third-row of seats are optional, Land Rover said that it is an automatic spec for the vehicles and an owner not wanting the third-row would have to specifically order it without the extra seats. That said, the Td4 variant will be a five-seater with the extra cost-option of adding a third-row; that vehicle will also not get airbag suspension and will only have a single-speed transfer case, so, no low-range.

Land Rover claims the new Discovery is better to drive than ever before. Thanks to its aluminium structure, the engineers have managed to strip out around 480kg of weight from the thing; with a weight distribution of almost 50:50.

There are three engines to choose from, a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel Ingenium (Td4) making 132kW and 430Nm of torque, a 2.0-litre four-cylinder twin-turbo diesel Ingenium (Sd4) making 177kW and 500Nm of torque and a 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine (Td6) making 190kW and 600Nm of torque. All are mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission. What about petrol engines? Given that literally only a handful of Discoverys were ever ordered with a petrol engine, Land Rover Australia will only be offering diesel engines.

There’s a lot more to unpack with the new Discovery, so, stay tuned for our full launch test later this week and a video walk around of the new Disco later today.