Range Rover Sport SVR: like a Rolex, it’s daft but I love it

Range Rovers are becoming like Rolexes: a bit naff. I think I know why.

2014 Range Rover Sport SVR

As my parents dropped me off at boarding school my dad reached into his pocket and presented me with a small box.

In it was an Omega Geneve Dynamic, and I welled up a bit. Partly because I was very frightened about boarding school, but mostly because I had never seen such a wondrous thing. A whole watch. Of my very own.

As the years dragged by I suffered many terrible things. I was thrown on an hourly basis into the icy plunge pool, dragged from my bed in the middle of the night and beaten, made to lick the lavatories clean and all the usual humiliations. In the first two years the older boys broke pretty much everything I owned. But I made sure when I heard them coming that my watch was safely locked away.

Today the Geneve Dynamic has become something of a classic. James May recently bought one and took it to work. “Look,” he said, like an excited Eeyore. “Isn’t it beautiful?” An opinion he held right up to the moment I said, “Oh, yeah. I’ve got one of those.” I really have.

I would like to start wearing the Geneve again. But watches have stopped being an heirloom presented by fathers to sons on important days and worn for life. They have become symbols of God knows what.

I fear that if I wore what is obviously a 1970s watch, people might think I was being postmodern or ironic or some such nonsense. And I’d hate that because as a general rule I pretty much despise anyone whose watch face is deliberately interesting. Which in certain circles today is: pretty much everyone.

I saw a man the other day wearing a watch that was: a) electric blue; and b) about the same size as his face. I don’t doubt for one minute that it had cost about £60,000 an acre, and, boy, did he want you to know it.

I’d also like to bet that in a special mahogany box in his dressing-room there were several other watches. Why? Owning two watches is like owning two irons. Why buy a watch when the one you are using still works? They don’t — and I won’t take any argument on this — go out of fashion.

I like a nice watch. I look with great attention at all the 200-page features about them in GQ magazine and I have been known to pause to look in a jeweller’s window. But my Omega Seamaster is still going strong and I don’t doubt for a moment that the only thing that will stop it will be the incinerator into which they put me when I’m dead.

I’ll come to the point. When did Rolexes become naff? There must have been a time when they were elegant and beautiful and worn by people with taste and discretion. But then one day they became the timepiece of choice for people called Steve. Now I think it’s fair to say the only thing in the world that’s worse than a fake Rolex is a real one.

I don’t doubt for a moment they are well engineered and designed to survive a nuclear holocaust, but you only ever see them sticking out of a suit that’s a bit too shiny, wrapped round the tattooed wrist of an arm that’s a bit too thick.

And that brings me neatly on to the Range Rover. Not that long ago Range Rovers were the very embodiment of quiet good taste. And underneath the raffish, stately exterior they were extremely capable.

On the correct tyres a Range Rover has always been miles and miles better than anything else. It’s been a world-class car. A gem. An all-time classic.

Now Range Rovers are becoming like Rolexes: a bit naff. I think I know why.

They have always been extremely expensive, which meant everybody who couldn’t afford one had to buy something else. But now every Steve in the land is running around in one, with his thick tattooed arm hanging out of the window.

And what it means is: the really well-off who would ordinarily buy the big, proper version of the Range Rover with the split, folding tailgate are thinking, “Oh, Lord. I can’t drive the same car as my plumber. I must get something else.”

But what? There is no alternative. You can get machines that work as well in the fields and on the road. But you cannot get one car that can do both.

And now finally we arrive at the car I’m supposed to be reviewing. The new Range Rover Sport SVR. It’s ridiculous in every way. It’s ridiculously expensive and ridiculously unnecessary. And it has a supercharged 5-litre V8 so it is ridiculously thirsty and ridiculously fast.

If you want a car that goes from 0 to 100km/h in about a millionth of a second and has a top speed of several thousand km/h, why buy something with the frontal area of a house and fuel consumption of an oil rig disaster?

Yes, it handles extremely well for something that’s bigger than a Scottish island, but if that’s what you want, why not buy a Jaguar, which has roughly the same engine, uses less fuel, goes even more speedily and costs less?

It gets worse because the ride in the Sport SVR is woefully abrupt. It’s the price you pay for its ability to lap the Nurburgring in two seconds dead.

It is a stupid car and I loved it. Because this is a Range Rover you can buy knowing with absolute certainty that the man who comes to service your electric gates won’t have one as well.

Range Rover Sport SVR

Engine: 5-litre V8

Outputs: 406kW at 6000rpm and 670Nm at 2500rpm

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic

Average fuel consumption: 12.8 litres per 100km

Price: £93,450

Release date: On sale now

Verdict: Handles extremely well for something bigger than a Scottish island

Rating: 4 out of 5