LA Auto Show 2015: 2016 Range Rover Evoque

Nov. 19, 2015 7:50 AM PT

What is it?

Quite the oddity: A two-door, four-seat, ragtop sport utility vehicle starting at $50,475.

(Range Rover)

Why it matters:

Because it’s just so weird, and it will be fun to see whether Range Rover – or anyone – can sell a convertible SUV. Nissan recently tried it with the equally bizarre and only slightly less pricey Murano CrossCabriolet, which sold quite poorly before being canceled after the 2014 model year. The Evoque Convertible has the advantage of looking less like an overgrown bathtub and being part of a brand that already sells distinctive vehicles to rich people.

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What’s new:

Mostly just the open roof. The Evoque has been around since the 2012 model year, competing in the increasingly cutthroat compact luxury crossover segment.

(Range Rover)

The competition:

Maybe high-end versions of the Jeep Wrangler? We can’t think of another convertible or SUV quite like this one.

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The details:

Powertrain: turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder; standard four-wheel drive

Transmission: 9-speed automatic

Fuel economy: not released; hardtop 2015 version gets 21 city/30 highway

Horsepower: 240

0-to-60 mph: 7.8 seconds, according to Range Rover

Torque: 251 pound-feet

Autos

Brian Thevenot

Brian Thevenot is the former deputy Business editor of the Los Angeles Times. He previously worked for a dozen years at the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, where he and his colleagues won two Pulitzer Prizes in 2006 for coverage of Hurricane Katrina and he edited a Pulitzer finalist in 2009. Thevenot later worked as a writer and editor at the Texas Tribune in Austin and as the business editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He left The Times in 2015.