OFF-ROAD ICON CLASSIER THAN EVER

+ Click to Enlarge TWO-TON SPORTS CAR: The Land Rover Sport Supercharged has a 383kW, five-litre V8 that puts it on par with BMW's M5 V10 performance sedan

September 9, 2009
By David Wilkins

Land Rover's Range Rover Sport is a superb product. If you put to one side for a moment the fact that it's a heavy SUV and judge it on its own terms, only two significant criticisms of this enormously capable off-roader have gained any traction – but what a curious pair of objections they are.

The Range Rover Sport, it is said, is a great car; it's just that it's not a Range Rover and it's not very sporty either. Now there's a new and heavily revamped Sport that will dispel such reservations, once and for all.

First, the question of the Sport's claim to be a proper Range Rover. Here the doubts have been of two sorts – technical and social. The technical objection is that the Sport shares its underlying architecture not with the current Range Rover but with the less expensive Discovery.

Specifications: Range Rover Sport Supercharged
Top speed: 225km/h; 0-100 5.9sec.
Consumption: 15 litres/100km.
CO2 emissions: 374g/km.
Best for: People who were thinking of buying a normal Range Rover.
UK price: £61 995 (R770 000). (due in SA October 2009)
Also worth considering? BMW X5, Range Rover, Porsche Cayenne.

The social objection is that while the Range Rover is associated with respectable old money, the Sport is a blinged-up chav-chariot.

These reservations are nonsense. The Discovery platform is outstanding and, for my money, the Sport is a better-looking car than the standard Range Rover as well.

Contrast the Sport's low roof and stylishly raked rear pillar with the loose, slightly flabby flanks of the mainstream Rangie; if anything, the Sport recaptures the essential dash of the original 1970 Range Rover better than today's Range Rover itself. Better materials and detailing mean the revised Sport is classier – or more Range Rovery – than ever.

And how sporty is the revised Sport? This car has now been reborn as a Cayenne-basher. The steering, braking and the rest of its on-road behaviour have been sharpened up considerably and it is now much quicker, thanks to a pair of deeply new impressive engines.

A PROPER RANGE ROVER

The first is a supercharged five-litre V8 producing about 383kW, putting it on par with BMW's benchmark M5 performance sedan. Even fighting against the Sport's weight, the supercharged engine delivers scintillating performance, but only for the few prepared to countenance the fuel bills.

The good news? The standard V6 diesel that most buyers will opt for has been replaced with an enlarged and much more powerful version that can be classified as fairly sporty as well.

So the worked-over Range Rover Sport is a proper Range Rover and it is sporty but it's still a big heavy SUV and fixing that means challenging the very core of what makes a Land Rover a Land Rover.

That could be a risky business. - The Independent, London