The Range Rover (L322) (usually known simply as the "Range Rover") is the third-generation Range Rover model from British car maker Land Rover and was originally developed under the codename 'L30'.
The L322 was introduced in 2001 and had a production run of over ten years. Planned and developed under BMW ownership, the vehicle was intended to share components and systems (electronics, core power units etc.) with the E38 7 Series. However, BMW had already sold Land Rover to Ford some two years before the L322 went into commercial production.
In the UK and many other territories, ascending trim levels were initially marketed as "SE", "HSE" and "Vogue". Various other trims such as "Vogue SE", "Westminster", "Autobiography" and special editions were subsequently produced.
In his Sunday Times column, Jeremy Clarkson once went on record to state that he owned a Range Rover TDV8 Vogue and it was ‘the best car in the world and best 4x4.’
The L322's successor, the L405, was announced in August 2012 and unveiled the same year at the Paris Motor Show.
The previous generation P38 Range Rover (or "Pegasus") had been developed whilst the Rover Group was owned by British Aerospace, and budgetary constraints during the development had been extremely tight. There was also press criticism of the P38A that its styling lacked the "presence" of the original 1970 Range Rover. When the Rover Group was taken over by BMW shortly after the P38A's launch in 1994, the newly installed BMW management at Land Rover quickly concluded that the car would not have a long shelf life compared to its predecessor, due to its fundamentally dated underpinnings, and cancelled the planned '99 Model Year' updates. A proposed replacement for the Discovery was postponed and development of an all-new Range Rover, codenamed L322, took priority.
The initial codename for the project was L30, in line with the then system of Lxx for Land Rover projects, such as Freelander (L20) and Discovery2 (L25).
The L30 project was a joint one involving engineers from both Rover Group and BMW and was initially based at BMW's FIZ Engineering Centre in Munich before transferring to Land Rover's Solihull plant for the final stages prior to volume production. Munich was chosen to house the team as Rover Group's Gaydon Engineering facility was already working on the new MINI (R50) project as well as other MG, Rover and Land Rover projects and did not have enough space for another large engineering team to be based there.
The sale of Land Rover by BMW to Ford occurred just before the move to Solihull and the contract included a clause which continued BMW's involvement until after the car had entered volume production.
The switch to Lxxx codenames occurred after the sale to Ford with L30 being renamed L322 at the top of a model line-up of Range Rover Sport (L320) Land Rover Discovery (Discovery3 L319), Land Rover Defender (L316) and Freelander (L314).
The third-generation Range Rover was designed to accommodate BMW's M62 V8 engines for future models. The manual transmission was dropped entirely, leaving only the automatic transmission. The BMW 7 Series E38 electronics system were being phased out during the development of the third-generation Range Rover, and being replaced with the electronics from the BMW E39 5 Series. The entertainment system (Radio Function, Navigation System, Television and Telecommunications systems, as well as the automotive computer bus system) on pre-facelift models were almost identical to those in the BMW E39 5 Series. Early models of the third-generation model Range Rover could be upgraded with some newer BMW technologies, although from 2005 onwards the electronics were based on Ford/Jaguar systems.
The design has a monocoque (unibody) construction with four-wheel independent air suspension. Air suspension allowed variable ride height and achieved similar axle articulation to the previous live axle design. This retained off-road abilities while improving on-road performance. The new Range Rover's introduction in late 2002 as a 2003 model for the North American market resulted in the Range Rover and Ford Expedition (also new for 2003) being the only two SUVs in the full-size sport utility class with four-wheel independent suspension systems at that time.
Early US-specification Range Rover included air conditioning with tri-zone climate controls with interior air filter, power tilt/telescopic leather-wrapped steering wheel with radio controls, cruise control, memory system, leather upholstered twelve-way power driver seats, ten-way power passenger seat, power sunroof, a premium sound system with six-disc CD changer, navigation system with voice activation, rearview camera, wireless mobile phone link, universal garage door opener, and outside-temperature indicator. Options included 14-way power heated/cooled front seats, DVD entertainment system, and upgraded leather upholstery.