The Range Rover Sport SV is certainly worth the wait
This SUV is not only full of surprises, it’s one of the most impressive new vehicles on the market today.
Let’s just pretend that I said “oops” instead of something far more unprintable. To be fair, the words that came from my mouth were beyond my control, because I was experiencing a jolt of surprise with a dash of dismay, on a racetrack, in a giant, fire-breathing SUV, which is never a good combination. I’d also like to say the mistake I’d just made, at speed, in a perilous spot, was not my fault; I blame Range Rover.
Motoring writers are a cynical bunch, difficult to impress or surprise, given we’ll typically drive hundreds of cars for thousands of kilometres every year. A new Porsche? That will be fast. A new Rolls-Royce? That will be opulent. A new Tesla? That will be weird, and cause people to stare. It’s all a bit predictable … until it isn’t.
The Range Rover Sport SV is one of the few new vehicles to surprise me in a long time.
Turning into the hairpin at the epic Portimão race circuit in the stunning Portuguese countryside, I can tell I’ve stuffed up. I’ve turned too early and I’ve missed the apex and messed up the corner. But, in my defence, the reason I took the corner so early was because I didn’t expect a two-tonne SUV to turn in so sharply. Especially one wearing the Range Rover badge, because if the British marque is renowned for one thing, it’s off-road performance, not carving corners at racetracks.
However, the latest Range Rover isn’t like anything the brand has built before. It says it’s the “most dynamic” model it has ever made, but that’s not a high bar. Range Rovers are not “dynamic”; they’re “rugged” or “capable” or “luxurious”, and often all of those. The all-new Range Rover Sport SV isn’t just the most dynamic vehicle from the brand, it’s one of the most impressive and engaging SUVs on the market today. And let’s not forget, that’s a market that already includes some of the most potent SUVs ever created, including recent arrivals such as the Lamborghini Urus, Aston Martin DBX and Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT. The Sport SV deserves mention in such company, and that is a massive achievement for Range Rover.
To pull off this remarkable transformation, Range Rover’s engineers loaded its newest model with as much technology as possible. This includes “six-dimensional” semi-active suspension, rear-wheel steering, torque vectoring and more highly advanced tools to help it handle much quicker than seems plausible.
It’s not going to outrun a sports car, but its on-track performance, for an SUV of this size and level of luxury, is nothing short of stunning. It turns with an urgency you typically only find in much smaller cars, in large part thanks to the rear-wheel steering, but the complex suspension also means it sits much flatter than the laws of physics suggest an SUV should.
Upon reaching the finishing straight on the circuit, we unleashed the small power station that lurks beneath the Range Rover’s carbon fibre bonnet (another first for the brand). It’s a 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 with mild-hybrid assistance, making a whiplash-inducing 467kW of power and 750Nm of torque.
That’s enough grunt to move this five-seat luxury SUV from standstill to 100km/h in just 3.8 seconds, and it will keep accelerating all the way to 290km/h. We only managed 233km/h before hitting the pedal to activate the F1-spec carbon fibre brakes. These provide consistent stopping power for such a big car and live within the huge 23-inch wheels, which come standard in forged alloy but can be optioned in carbon fibre. The latter are the largest of their kind in the world and are made in Australia by local success story Carbon Revolution.
While the performance of the Sport SV is a major change for Range Rover, the fit and finish in the cabin is very much typical.
Opening the solid but soft-closing doors, you slide yourself into newly developed Body and Soul seats. These have been designed to take luxury to the next level, especially for any music lover. They feature four transducers integrated into the seat back and which are able to pulse to the beat of any kind of music you’re enjoying. Their design was developed in conjunction with Coventry University, and uses technology already available in wearable form in the music industry. The seats use a dedicated AI system to isolate low frequencies and convert them into the pulses produced through the transducers.
The system doesn’t just work with music – the university’s musicians also developed six unique audio tracks specifically designed to relax you after any high-speed stress, with titles including Calm, Serene and Cool, and paired with suitable soothing pulses from the transducers.
All this luxury and performance doesn’t come cheap, however, with the Range Rover Sport SV Edition One (which is the only model initially available) priced from $360,800. Or at least that’s what it would cost you if you could buy one. Range Rover is supply constrained in the first year, so you have to be invited to join this party. Everyone else will likely need to wait until 2025 for more examples of the Sport SV to become available. But when you find a new vehicle that can genuinely surprise and delight you like this one, it’s well worth waiting for.
This story is from the May issue of WISH.
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