Land Rover Discovery Sport may get seven seats as standard

Land Rover has started testing the final prototypes of the Discovery Sport ahead of its planned debut at the Paris motor show in October. The official images revealed by the company indicate a third seat for the Discovery Sport, behind the conventional rear bench. These two rear seats are most likely to fold forward to enable more load space at the back, and could be completely removable too.

Seven seats as standard will offer the Discovery Sport an advantage amongst the increasingly crowded mid-size luxury SUV segment, currently dominated by the 5-seater Audi Q5 and BMW X3. Land Rover design boss Gerry McGovern said the car would offer "spacious load space and configurable seating, while still retaining a more compact footprint than traditional five-seat SUVs."

Power for the upcoming Land Rover Discovery Sport is due to come from Jaguar Land Rover's new range of advanced Ingenium engines.