Two top sellers take centre stage this month, as Land Rover’s Discovery Sport squares up to the similarly ubiquitous Volvo XC60

If you’re looking to play safe and go with the UK mainstream, you’ll struggle to pick a couple of more popular mid-sized 4x4s than the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Volvo’s XC60. They’re literally everywhere. Sadly, however, ‘in the mainstream’ doesn’t necessarily equate to low cost, with both of these in their tested form leaving little change, if any, out of £50,000. Granted, there’s clearly the option to head down the nearly-new route or settle for a lower-spec 2WD variant — the Discovery Sport starts at around £31,500, the XC60 £39,000 — whereas, if on an even bigger budget, you can load up with extras and inflate the final onroad bill to north of £60,000.