Dream on: the latest Range Rover TDV8

Sigh, wonderful stuff if you can afford it: latest 4.4 litre TDV8 turbodiesel in the Range Rover Vogue offers 230kW, an increase of 15.1 per cent and 700Nm of torque, a boost of 9.4 per cent. CO2 emissions are down 14 per cent to 253g/km and fuel drops by 18.5 per cent to a remarkable 9.4 litres/100km overall. It runs 0-100km/h in 7.8 seconds and the 80-120km/h overtaking run drops from 6.3 seconds to 5.1 seconds. "For you, Sir, $194,990 and I'll see what I can do about the on-road costs."

Gotta say they look pretty good in the southern NSW drizzle, where the Australia-NZ launch was held. The off-roading bit wasn't exactly onerous and almost an insult to the Range Rover Vogue's abilities.

New ZF eight speed automatic transmission brings with it a control knob and steering wheel paddles. The terrain response knob has been replaced by a set of switches (foreground).

And here are the instruments. Ooops, no, the sunset picture is what you get on the  nifty new TFT screen when the engine's off. Then, remarkably authentic-looking "virtual" instruments appear. Very cool.

 Here's a video of the TFT panel doing its stuff.