The Driver’s Seat: Henry Catchpole in the Range Rover Sport SV
An initial 2500-unit worldwide run of the First Edition Range Rover Sport SV—priced at £185,000 each (about $236,000)—has already sold out, so the concept is a relatively popular one.
An SUV seeking to be capable on a race track is still tough for many to fathom, and plenty will ask what the point is, but there is another aspect of the SV that arguably makes it compelling: Land Rover still gave it proper off-road capability. While a Ferrari Purosangue might wince at the thought of much more than a muddy car park, the Range Rover Sport SV has been through the same off-road tests as its Land Rover brethren. Even while wearing those huge 23-inch carbon-fiber rims.
What’s more, you can have enormous carbon-ceramic brakes with 440mm discs and eight-piston calipers. Add in an anti-roll system that we’ve previously seen on supercars and you have a Land Rover capable of tackling totally new territory for the brand.
Whilst cars like the Porsche 911 Dakar and the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato seek to broaden their sporty horizons on muddier terrain, the new Range Rover Sport SV is setting its sights on the smooth tarmac of race circuits. Everyone, it seems, is blurring the lines these days.
On the international launch, Henry Catchpole drove the SV around the testing twists and turns of Portimão and was frankly astonished at what the Land Rover was capable of doing. The 6D Dynamics system for the chassis keeps the SV incredibly flat, both laterally in the corners and longitudinally under acceleration and braking. It’s helped by a redesigned rear subframe and, when its new SV mode, a ride height that is 25mm lower than that of a standard Range Rover Sport. There is also a considerably quicker steering ratio and the option of new Michelin Pilot Sport 5 S summer tires to help get the most from the chassis.
By comparison with that chassis, the powertrain is a bit of a sideshow. The BMW-sourced 4.4-liter, mild hybrid, twin-turbo V-8 sounds quite pleasing but is very demure acoustically when compared to the old SVR’s 5.0-liter supercharged V-8. However, with its 635 hp and 553 lb-ft of torque, it has plenty of oomph to propel the SV to 62 mph in just 3.8 seconds on all-season rubber, or 3.6 seconds on summer tires. Probably best to add a few seconds if you plan to make that sprint in off-road conditions…
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