Here’s Why The Range Rover Evoque Is A Perfect Time Capsule Of The Early 2010s

All images of the Range Rover Evoque in this article were sourced from JLR’s media website

Cast your mind back to the late 2000s. Mobile phones were still very much dumb, despite the iPhone existing, Topshop and Superdry were dominant powers of mainstream British fashion, cars were still recognisable shapes before the influx of crossovers, and Britain was about to enter political and financial turmoil. 

Meanwhile, I was in my first half of secondary school then, so none of that really mattered to me. I had a Motorola flip phone, I thought Nike Total 90s were peak fashion, and my favourite weekend activity was going out into the countryside on my bike with my mates from school. 

In the background of all of this was Land Rover designing and planning to launch their most ambitious model yet - the Evoque. 

Presumably, the idea of the Evoque started brewing sometime during the early-mid 2000s, with the first glimpse of the model being displayed at a number of motor shows in 2008 in the form of the very bold and different LRX concept. This concept was very different to the contemporary Land Rover models as it was small, angular and youthful. This car spawned the first-generation Evoque, which later went on sale in 2011, looking almost identical to the LRX concept. 

The Evoque Victoria Beckham Special Edition

Gerry McGovern and…Victoria Beckham?

After a spell at Ford, Gerry McGovern joined Land Rover’s design team in 2004 and got to work immediately. The LRX/Evoque was the first car he penned for the legendary brand and was met with acclaim from both the press and public alike. Even before officially going on sale, the car gained 18,000 pre-orders, and a year on, in mid-2012, over 80,000 units were sold. 

Regarding the design, McGovern did an incredible job with the Evoque, with the car winning multiple design awards, as well as a few Car of the Year awards from many publications, including Top Gear, Auto Express and MotorTrend.

But let’s address the slightly orange elephant in the room - Victoria Beckham.

Many people spread the story that Victoria Beckham had a prominent part in the design stage of the Evoque, which is quite wrong. From doing minimal research, that theory is incorrect and should be disregarded. However, she did have involvement with the Evoque, to an extent.

So in 2012, a year after the Evoque went on sale, Land Rover had the questionably genius idea to collaborate with Posh Spice to create a limited edition Evoque, creatively named the ‘Range Rover Evoque Special Edition with Victoria Beckham’. The final result was an Evoque Coupe (three-door hatchback to you and me) with a 237bhp petrol engine finished in black matt paint, with a surprisingly nice cognac coloured leather interior. Buyers also received a bespoke luggage set and a signed owner’s manual by Becks herself - weren’t they lucky!

Land Rover said they’d only make 200 of these blinged-out Evoques worldwide, but I do wonder if any of them sold, considering they were priced at a whopping £79,995 in 2012 money. In 2025 money, that’s a whopping £116,000. Yikes.

So, what about the time capsule bit?

Yes, I know I’ve been yapping about Victoria Beckham for the past hundred or so words, so let’s get to the point. 

You see, the late 2000s were an interesting time for not only cars, but fashion, technology and politics. As I don’t want to discuss politics and the dismal state of the UK for the past 20 years, let’s just focus on the more interesting bits.

Technology

2005 to 2010 was really a turning point for consumer technology. TVs were rapidly moving to flat-screen LCDs in all sorts of shapes and sizes, with LED technology progressing by the year, and mobile phones were quickly becoming the only device people carried. 

For a while, a lot of people would carry a phone, an MP3 player (or iPod) and maybe a point-and-shoot camera if you’re going somewhere worthwhile. However, in January 2007, a little-known company called Apple made a shock reveal, with a product called an iPhone. There’s a good chance you’re probably reading this on an iPhone now, but back in 2007, it shook the world. It was truly the first portable device that could practically do everything you needed to do away from a computer. The iPhone changed mobile phones forever, with everyone wanting a piece of the pie.

I would say that the iPhone and similar devices heavily influenced car interior design, as almost overnight, large screens started to appear in car dashboards, trying to be like period phones.

The Evoque is a prime example. For the time, it was offered with a relatively large touchscreen which controlled the sat nav, radio and other in-car functions. This dashboard design would eventually make its way into other Range Rover’s including the Sport and Velar, and traces of this design can still be seen in the current Range Rovers.

Fashion

I admit, I am not the most fashionable person in the world, and far from it. However, the Evoque was indeed a fashionable trend-setter, which some might say is quite fashionable. At the time, a lot of equivalent cars were fairly dull and had some awful colours on offer - think of  2008-2012 General Motors products and you’ll see what I mean. Even rivals in Germany couldn’t match the Evoque's chic look and forward-thinking visuals. I’m looking at you, BMW X1 and Mercedes GLK.

When the Evoque launched, there was a big emphasis on two-tone colours inside and out and marketing it in iconic locations in the fashion world - Milan, London and so on. 

Purely from a design perspective, it has barely aged a day since the initial LRX concept from way back in 2008 and still looks like a premium product. I’m struggling to think of any other car from that segment that can do the same.

The Evoque was indeed quite a trend-setter then, which in my eyes is cool and fashionable. 

Cars

Much like technology and fashion, cars were in for a sudden change in the late 2000s. MPVs, small estates and even some hatchbacks were going out of fashion, and some manufacturers, like Nissan, cashed in early.

Land Rover at the time had the Freelander 2, Discovery 3, Defender and its many variants, Range Rover Sport and the full-fat Range Rover. Instead of replacing any of these, the Evoque was just an addition to the growing Range Rover family, as the ‘entry-level’ model. Priced from £30,000, the Evoque would change Land Rover for the better, as it brought in a ridiculous amount of new customers to the brand and made sales skyrocket.

Rival manufacturers saw this and quickly prepared Evoque alternatives. Audi was already developing the Q3 by the time the LRX concept was shown in 2008, Mercedes revealed the GLA in 2013, and companies like Lexus took even longer, with them revealing the UX in 2018. 

Ok, now tell us more about the Evoque as a car

Right, so the Evoque was and still is the smallest Range Rover badged Land Rover and is also the cheapest new Range Rover money can buy. 

Initially, the Evoque was launched with a choice of a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine producing 237bhp or two flavours of the PSA-derived 2.2-litre turbocharged diesel engine, producing either 148bhp or 188bhp; the latter was available with four-wheel drive. The Evoque was also the first Range Rover to be available with four-cylinder engines. 

Due to it being a Range Rover, it still had to perform as well off-road as the Freelander, on which the Evoque was based. Compared to rivals, the Evoque could go further off-road thanks to its ground clearance, approach and departure angles, as well as utilising the four-wheel drive system and Land Rover’s Terrain Response system.

Three bodystyles were on offer during the lifespan of the first-generation - a three-door coupe, a five-door SUV and of course, the unforgettable two-door convertible, which is easily one of the oddest cars Land Rover has ever produced.

The first-generation car would be in production between 2011 and 2018, with a facelift coming in 2016. A second-generation model went on sale in 2018 and is still on sale today. 

Image credit: Navigator84 - Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

That Chinese clone…

So if you know anything about the Evoque, you should know that the Chinese straight-up copied the design and started to sell it as their own.

For a while in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Chinese were desperate to sell their home-grown cars both domestically and internationally. Domestic sales weren’t an issue as there was very little in the way of external competition from the West. This led to the Chinese simply copying Western designs, which is exactly what Landwind did when they revealed the X7.

Ian Callum caught wind of this very cheeky move by Landwind, and of course, JLR  took them to court in China, where they battled for many years until, in a very rare move, JLR won in the Chinese courts. This resulted in the Landwind X7’s production run being immediately ceased in 2019, and Landwind paying compensation. 

The Evoque today

If you’ve got this far, you either own an Evoque or you want one.

Well, the good news is that Land Rover made hundreds of thousands of Evoques over the years. Now, I’m not going to do a full used car buying guide, as plenty of them exist already, but instead, I’m going to give my opinion on what one I would go for and one you should probably get based on my honest opinion. 

At the time of writing (end of August 2025), there are nearly 4,000 Evoques for sale on AutoTrader alone, which makes it the most popular model across all of the Land Rovers for sale.

So, the one I’d want to buy is a facelift three-door coupe with the 2.0 petrol and four-wheel drive, which is stupidly rare because no one bought them new, which is a shame. You can usually get these for around £15,000 for a 2016 model with reasonable mileage on them.

However, the ones most people will go for are the diesels, which are absolutely fine for most people. Keep an eye out for spec, as there are some incredibly well-optioned ones hidden amongst the base spec manuals. Get one of those for the full mini-Range Rover experience, but don’t be surprised when something eventually goes wrong. 

You can get an Evoque for as low as £4,000 now, which is incredible value for such a cool little thing, but I absolutely do not recommend this, as it’ll result in a terrible ownership experience. Spend a bit more for one with some nice options, and in a good colour - they were sold in a lovely dark red and a sea blue. Trust me, colour is good.

Just avoid anything with an Ingenium engine though…

Summary

I truly think the original Evoque will be looked back on in decades to come as a British design icon, in the same way as the original Land Rover, the original and new Mini and even the Rolls-Royce Phantom.

It’s a car that helped Land Rover to become even more profitable, enter new markets, and, of course, gain a bunch of new customers.

I really like the Evoque, and you should too.