2016 Range Rover Evoque Convertible 2.0 TD4 180 review

Thornily subjective though its appearance might be, it’s worth stating that the car doesn’t look farcical on the road. Certainly it helps if that road is Verbier high street, and the pedestrians are predominately clad in neon jump suits, but the car’s impenitent showiness is kept in check by generally sound styling decisions. The high, prominent shoulder line is ship-deck clean and flat, and the adjoining Webasto roof low and slender. It is quirky, yes, and terminally unsuited to say, a builder’s yard – but the Evoque’s fine bone structure is unquestionably intact.

Broadly speaking, there’s little wrong with the Z-fold fabric roof either. The 18 seconds required for it to go down isn’t fantastically quick (nor the 21 seconds needed for it to come back up again), yet it’ll do it on the move and without unwarranted fuss. It can get a little blustery with it stowed, but the refinement underneath it is impressive. There’s a very faint whistle at very high motorway speeds, but a raised voice is never required, even when speaking to those in the back.

Range Rover Evoque review

Ah yes, the back. Here, from where the B-pillar used to be, the Evoque’s wicket gets stickier. For any buyer equating the model’s physical presence with rear-seat spaciousness, the convertible is likely to be a disappointment. There is room for two adults in the back, although that rating is scuttled by even modestly tall occupants or anyone not up to the inelegant clamber required to get in.

Those that do will find their feet resting on a sloping incline of what must surely be extra bracing running across the floorpan. Even with a 2.4 family of the right scale, the Evoque is no longer able to cope with much clutter. To accommodate the hood above, Land Rover has effectively cut the load space in half, leaving you with the kind of ungenerous two-suitcase aperture you’d find above your head in an Airbus.

If none of that wrinkles your nose (and there are plenty of older, sunbed searching couples for whom it might not) there are other attention-to-detail blind spots to get up it. The plastic covers, for example, which fold down to neatly seal up the body when the roof is stowed, stand redundantly upright next to the rear headrests when it’s pitched. That's almost as functionally untidy as having windows that don’t fully retract into the door or a boot handle (and button) that is no longer far enough away from the hinge to make it a good lever for opening and closing the lid.

Traditionally, Land Rover has managed to sweep this kind of negligible unevenness under the thick, plush carpet of its ride and handling – but even for Gaydon, the undisputed master of managing mass and high-sidedness, the open-top Evoque has plainly proven a difficult compromise. Rigidity, as you might have guessed, is an issue. Not, it must be said, to the extent we’d feared: there is no creak or chronic scuttle shake from the pre-production car, and while the platform’s displaced quiver registers in the jowls and rear-view mirror, it is subdued enough to be forgiven in the long run.