You can’t claim the Range Rover Hybrid is green enough to help save the lush fields of England. No, no, no.

It is, after all, equipped with an electric motor so small that it would barely power an electric toothbrush (by the way, one of the few features not fitted as standard to this Autobiography model).

Instead, the real grunt of the Hybrid comes from the same 3.0-litre TDV6 fitted to the standard Rangey, which without the £10,000 hybrid technology, returns 40.9mpg and emits 182g/km of nasties.

The Hybrid by comparison returns 44.1mpg and emits 169g/km. Slightly better but nowhere near good enough to beat the London Congestion Charge – and only saves a meagre £20 on your annual road tax bill.

But you wouldn’t believe the amount of interest I’ve got in this particular Range Rover over the weekend. It’s like driving an SUV powered by a wind up elastic band.

I suppose we’ve always thought of Range Rovers as gas-guzzling monsters. But while the Hybrid version may not be perfect, it does show the direction Land Rover is travelling.

And you can bet your last few acres that somebody at Land Rover in Birmingham is already perfecting the first all-electric Range Rover too…