The high life

By Paul Markillie

What is the best car you have ever owned? The answer may not have much to do with speed, handling, reliability and all the stuff of practicality. The car that pushes to the front is more likely to be powered by emotion. Even unreliable money-pits can drift into abstraction when old favourites are fondly recalled. And so it will be for me early next year, when a new Range Rover goes on sale. One of its predecessors was the best car I ever owned.

The new Rangie will be a tad bigger, posher and—starting at £71,295 ($114,000)—more expensive than ever. It needs to be better, because other producers, like Bentley and Maserati, harbour ambitions to knock it off its perch with capacious ultra-plush models.