This Sporty Land Rover Concept Put Scissor Doors On An SUV

Land Rover is synonymous with capable off-roaders that can take you over rough terrain in style, and it's known for its iconic and timeless designs too. The design we associate with Land Rover and Range Rover can be traced back decades, right back to the company's beginnings, but the look of today's models owes a lot to one concept in particular, the 2004 Range Stormer concept.

It was a radical two-door Range Rover SUV design study that not only previewed a new model (the Range Rover Sport that was revealed later in 2004 and introduced one year later), but it also showed the way forward for the brand's design for well over a decade after it was revealed. Probably the craziest thing about this concept is not the way it looks or the fact that it's a two-door, but the fact that its doors open upward, like on a Lamborghini.

Scissor doors are not something you would expect to see on an SUV, even in a two-door design study, so they make the Range Stormer concept quite special. Its doors open very wide, and when fully open, they sit almost vertically, giving the vehicle a lot of presence.

With the Range Stormer, Land Rover was also hinting at the fact that the next generation of its Range Rover luxury products would be infused with more technology and luxury than ever before. Land Rover was looking to compete with newcomers like the BMW X5 or the Mercedes-Benz ML.

Both of these German rivals were high-riding SUVs, but neither focused on off-road capability. BMW and Mercedes both came to the conclusion that luxury SUV buyers didn't really care how well their vehicles did off-road, and that all they wanted was the higher driving position and just the look of an off-roader.

Land Rover designed the Range Rover Sport specifically to rival the X5 and ML, and it engineered the vehicle to be good to drive on smooth tarmac, even offering spiced-up versions that were even better to drive. It even infused the production model with a little bit of sportiness, and it was the most engaging Range Rover to drive ever when it was launched, but the name "Sport" didn't actually describe how it felt to drive, since it was still a comfort-oriented vehicle.

Even though the Range Rover Sport (pictured) had more of a tarmac focus and its name implied that it was designed primarily for road use, Land Rover still made it exceptionally capable over rough terrain. Thanks to adaptive air suspension with a variable ride height, owners could set the vehicle up either to be good on the road or to have the ability to cross uneven ground or obstacles.

The Range Stormer also announced the arrival of supercharged V8 engines under the hood of Range Rover models, and the Sport was the perfect candidate to receive it (although it also made its way into the standard Range Rover model in 2006, one year after the Sport's introduction). It also made it clear that Land Rover was going to design its future models with much more technology and gadgets than ever before, both to enhance its safety and luxury as well as to make it even more capable off-road.