With this latest special edition came the first major round of exterior tweaks, specific to the Autobiography Black:

Autobiography Black Badging & Signature Rear Lamps – along with a  glimpse of the new chrome horizontal trim

Updated finish for front grill (and a green oval!)

Side vents get refreshed look with chrome additions and the L badge for the LWB. Land Rover seems to be into these new door badge designations lately – with the Hybrid and the 2014 Discovery getting them too.  I really like how the side vents look, it’s a great compromise between the full Atlas vents and the standard body color.

Here’s another view of the front, the changes to the grill are more noticeable.  The auxiliary vents now getting a metallic surround.  I’m not a huge fan of what they did with those vents.  The metallic vents are one of my favorite little details on the regular Range Rover Autobiography.  But on that model only the horizontal fins are metallic, the actual surround stays body color.  Too me it just seems more elegant with the metallic fins just floating in body color.  This looks heavier and more slapped on.

And finally the 21” 7-spoke polished chrome wheel

I like it.

Land Rover officially announced the new Long Wheelbase version of the All-new Range Rover, it’s revealed as a special edition, Autobiography Black.

• Long wheelbase Range Rover extends customer appeal*
• The ultimate SUV alternative to saloon cars in the long wheelbase market
• First Range Rover long wheelbase in 20 years
• Debuts at LA and Guangzhou motor shows
• Autobiography Black launched as the new pinnacle of the Range Rover line-up*
  • First class exclusivity and luxury combined with true Land Rover breadth of capability
  • Debuts at Dubai motor show
• First customer deliveries from March 2014*
• Over 840,000 Range Rover vehicles sold since launch in 1970

(more…)

The 2014.5 model year for the Range Rover will begin with December builds.  We knew what was coming, the minor updates to various systems.  Now we actually know how some of them will work.

As described in the official PR:

Planned for a mid-year introduction, the Range Rover will offer Enhanced Parking Aids to bolster the already-available Parallel Park feature. Parking Exit will be able to help the driver to automatically exit parallel parking spaces; Perpendicular Park can automatically position the vehicle centrally in parking spaces to maximize exiting room on both sides, 360-degree Park Distance Control will provide virtual object tracking along the sides of the vehicle at speeds of up to 10mph (16km/h).

New optional Lane Departure will use a forward-looking camera to monitor the vehicle’s position between lane markings. The Lane Departure Warning system provides haptic feedback through the steering wheel should the driver begin to move out of lane without using a turn signal.  The same camera is used for the Traffic Sign Recognition system, which identifies speed limit signs and a variety of other warning and information signs^.

We’ll focus on the two new Parking Aid items: Parking Exit and Perpendicular Park.

The thing I hadn’t realized was that Perpendicular parking would be for reversing into a space, in hindsight it makes sense and makes the feature more interesting.  I also wondered how it would be activated, with two additional features, how would the controls change.  Now we know:

The Park assist button can be used to scroll through the 3 Park assist features:
• A first press of the button turns the system on and selects Parallel parking.
• A second press of the button selects Perpendicular parking.
• A third press of the button selects Parking exit.
• A fourth press of the button turns the system off and will extinguish the LED.

Thank you Cyril so much for this document, it’s an interesting read for someone in the market for a new Range Rover – behind the scenes notes, options & pricing

It’s an Excel document, about 2MB in size.

Range Rover 14.5MY UK Pricing & Order Guide – Issue 4 – 16th December 2013 (Excel)

Enjoy!

Details are still sketchy but it appears side window blinds, also found in many competitors vehicles will be added to the Long Wheelbase version of the new Range Rover.  Not sure if we’ll see this in the SWB models.

They’ll operate with no added buttons – with the windows closed, another pull up on the switch will raise the blinds.

Similar to what you see here in the S-Class:

Also for the LWB, they’ve added what’s being called, Conversation Assist.  It’s described as:

Conversation assist enables the front and rear occupants to speak to each other, aided by the
vehicle’s Audio system.

Conversation assist offers 3 options:
• Off: Touch to switch the system On/Off.
• Low: Touch to select low volume.
• High: Touch to select high volume.

My question is this – How far back do you really sit in the LWB, it’s only 10” longer?!  I wonder if there’s some sort of partition?

Although not officially announced, we’ve known the Long Wheel Base version of the new Range Rover would be here soon.  Some info has slipped out from Land Rover; here are the “official” numbers.