Never out of Range

In this instalment of Real Cars, Real People, Clement Isack, head of UAE Treasury at France's Calyon Bank, tells Paolo Rossetti that his bond with the Range Rover is unbreakable.

Clement Isack is on his fifth Range Rover since 1999 - something tells me we have a Rangie fanatic on our hands here!

Hailing from Kandy, Sri Lanka, he currently serves as the Head of UAE Treasury with a leading French bank (Calyon - part of the Credit Agricole Group) managing liquidity, and advising corporates on how to manage their exposure to movements in foreign currency and interest rates using structured derivatives - nice, but what about the Rangies?

Paolo Rossetti: You have a great-looking car, Clement. What's the model and year, and do you know some of the specs?
Clement Isack: Of course! It's a Range Rover HSE 4.4L, 2006 model, running a V8 engine with an output of 320 horsepower.

I've heard the Range Rover is brilliant in many regards. What are its best two features for you personally?
The seating position and the elevated view that comes with it is first on the list, without a doubt. It has never been matched by any other car manufacturer to date.

I'd say the second feature for me would be a combination of how easy it feels on the road and the power it generates - to reiterate, although it is a pure-bred 4WD, it feels like a sedan to drive and has enough power to accelerate from 0-100 in 11 seconds.

It is also excellent when the going gets rough and has enough gadgetry in it to take you in and out of the worst terrain.

Quite honestly, I can't single out just two features - there's so many of them! It is a combination of engineering features that equally contribute to the Rangie being such a fantastic vehicle.

And it is indeed a fine vehicle - top of its class in both luxury and performance. Car critics the world over have
reported that this is the best-looking Range Rover yet.

If you could make any changes to the car, what would be your top request?
Get some more compartments within it, although I'd be very careful in making big changes, because it's just absolutely perfect the way it is.

Nice to hear from a satisfied customer - but does it really go off-road? This is a 4x4 model; how is the performance off-road, say compared to comparable vehicles of other makes?
Some people will have it that Japanese makes are now Kings of the Desert. If you know how to handle the features that are incorporated in the Rangie, I am sure it will perform equally well, if not better, in the desert.

You see, most people out here have treated the Rangie as a luxury SUV, and never really tried it off-road, and when you try doing stuff with it off-road without knowing what it can give you, something goes wrong and suddenly you are talking negative about its capabilities.

To me, the Range Rover is a luxurious version of the Defender 110Tdi (Clement owns one back home in Sri Lanka), and I am sure the Range Rover will rise up to any challenge provided it's handled by the right jockey - a fact of life not only with cars!

Have you had any unpleasant surprises, perhaps due to reliability issues?
Word on the street used to be you shouldn't drive anywhere too far from the Range Rover dealership, lest the towing charges be too expensive.

Not really. I have used many models of the Range Rover, and my first was a 1994 model. And I owned the second generation model, and one with the Land Rover engine and another with the BMW engine.

But, to answer your question, not really; whatever maintenance I have had to do, even with the air suspension, it was more or less anticipated. Unpleasant all right when they happen from time to time, but surprises, 'no'.

Without a doubt, though, the 2006 Range Rover is spectacularly good looking. What response do you get from friends? What do people say to you?
They call me the "Range Rover man", while my wife is known as the "Range Rover Lady" (makes it tough to hide in Dubai) especially because of the number of our friends that have also bought Rangies after me, including the 4 that I have owned and sold on.

But I think people also appreciate my loyalty to the marquee.

You have a long history with Rangies - what made you choose a Range Rover in the first place?
Good question. I loved the first one the most; it was a 1994 model that I bought from an expatriate lady who was leaving town in 1999. Then my wife got her licence in 2001 and I wanted to buy a second car, and after test-driving almost 5 different makes and models, I ended up buying a 1998 model.

Never looked back. When I wanted to replace the 1994, again, I couldn't settle for anything less than a Rangie.

Anything else you'd like to tell us about your beautiful car?
You try it once, and you will love it for the rest of your life! I'd like to compare my bond with the Rangie to that of an unbreakable marriage.